To whom it may concern

I've received a couple of emails, so I thought I would post an update on myself and my family in the wake of Hurricane Frances. Given how far flung we all are now, I find it pretty amazing that it managed to touch all of us in some way. We'll start with Jacob, as he was in the most immediate danger living near Ft. Lauderdale, FL. He evacuated early the same morning that mandatory evacuations were issued (later that morning, so he got out ahead of the crowd). Had he not left when he did, it would have taken almost twice as long for him to get out. He had to go all the way to Macon, GA (an hour or so south of Atlanta) to find a hotel. That's about 600 miles. Took him about 16 hours. Starting about 90 miles south of the FL/GA line, most of the trip was made at around 20 mph. But he was out and safe; that was the important thing.

Next, the rest of my family. My parents live in Brunswick in coastal Georgia, roughly half way between Jacksonville, FL, and Savannah, GA. So, as Frances moved north, they were getting whipped some. Ironically, given the path of the storm, my paternal grandparents were actually getting it worse than my parents. They live about 100 miles inland from my parents in Waycross, but the way the rain bands were arcing, they were going through Savannah, then coming around through Waycross, going around and over Brunswick.

As the storm continued moving north, it started affecting us and my maternal grandmother, who lives about an hour east of Atlanta. As of yesterday, she had received more rain than we had, but I think it was windier here. Been raining almost constantly since around midnight. Power went out here around 1 AM, but only for less than 5 seconds. Basically, long enough that the lack of noise woke me up (it cut off our fan), and long enough that we have to reset all the clocks. ::grumble grumble:: I guess if that's the worst it comes to, we're doing well.

Jacob is still in Georgia, though he has headed a little closer to home. He is currently staying with my parents. Parts of I-95 are still closed around West Palm Beach, FL. He has to go through there to get back to his place. They are currently trying to decide if they should try to take I-75 back instead. The problem at the moment is the lack of gasoline in Florida. Even if they do get back, they wouldn't be able to go many places on a virtually empty tank, and they may have to turn around and leave again next weekend (thank you Hurricane Ivan).

So, bottom line, all of "my people" are fine. We won't know about property until Jacob manages to get home. Keep those who were affected in your hearts and minds, and pray we don't all have to do all this again in a week due to Hurricane Ivan.