One of the late summer, early autumn rituals in Florida is hurricane preparedness. You might be thinking, “ah….isn’t that the middle of the peak of hurricane season?” Yes, it is. And to be clear there also has to be a projection of a hurricane possibly heading to your home area for any meaningful preparedness activities to be undertaken in earnest.. And then, even at that, the level of preparedness is related to the projected storm strength. “Only Cat 1? No problem, we’re good.” The fact that, especially in Gulf of Mexico waters, storms can rapidly increase to Cat 3 and 4 is acknowledged, “but that stuff hits Texas or Louisiana – maybe the Florida Panhandle, but that’s almost Alabama anyway.” Every year in late May the newspapers print a special insert on preparing for hurricane season; not sure how well it is read.  I am not sure we Floridians are the most prepared for hurricane season and we know it’s coming. We’ll chat about it, we’ll tell stories about particular hurricanes, “that was a big one; blew roofs clean off homes. The whole neighborhood had the blue tarp covers on roofs for months. Yup, that was a big one.” But as the seasons change, Floridian’s conversations shift from hurricanes to the changing colors of … auto license plates during the annual snowbird invasion, congesting roads but filling state tax coffers with the tourist tax. We’re prepared for that. Continue reading →