LIVE FROM HURRICANE GORDON

7:30am Sun 9/17/00


Me & the kids got up around 7:30a.m. with a slow steady yet moderately light rain I cooked them breakfast and took the photos, currently it's still no big deal. Still under hurricane, tropical storm, and flood warnings. Pool & Pond still fine.
8:00 am Sun 9/17/00 weather update- the current info is that the eye of the storm is located 115 miles WSW of Tampa Bay, with sustained winds of 75mph, it's moving NNE at 16mph our local information shows gusts of up to 35-40mph, here in our neighborhood our highest gusts are probably 20-25mph. The weather channel said that the storm will bypass Tampa in aprox 3-4hrs.
9:00am Sun 9/17/00 (webcam back up for outside weather)

As you can tell by 9am a nice little weather cell had reached us.
The wind became steady, and the rain become a steady
moderate rain instead of the light ones we had.
The sky has darkened a bit and it just basically
looks like a blah kind of day. With exception
of the little gusts we get every now and then.
We are now under all the previous warnings
and add to that a Tornado watch.
The normal typical Florida afternoon
thunderstorm is worse than anything we have
seen so far from Hurricane Gordon.
Lloyd got up and put the webcam back on line.

10:30 pm Sunday 9/17/00
	Sam & Dusty, and the neighbor kids, Matt & Kasey slip on their suits and play in the rain at 10:30am. Due to the wind gusts and the "cooler" rain it only lasted a few minutes.

The bottom 4 pictures above. were taken at 11am
Notice the weather once again has gotten a little
bit uglier. The pool has crested and is slowly flowing
over the top and out into the yard as usual during a
normal storm. Out the front door, you can see our
street, the little tree is blowing over a bit now and
then. Thru the screen room I shot a pic of the huge
palm tree blowing over. and Then out our formal
living room is my landscaped (or should I say,
"formerlly landscaped now more like a gold fish
pond" front patio. Those plants are sitting on
the concrete patio right outside the french doors.
We still have a good 6 or 7 inches before it would
even come close to getting in the house there.
And should the condition worsen we could actually
pull up the landscaping bricks and the water would
naturally drain better. There are several reports
of power being down in our county. We are still
under all warnings and watches. According
to Dr Lloyd Kirk the "metorologist"
we have a bad cell/feeder band coming thru within
the next hour. He said it will be the worst we have
seen yet, but still nothing really major. Next update
in a couple hours. According to reports, winds are
sustained around 18mph with reported gust to 35-40mph
We haven't seen one lightnign bolt or heard one clap
of thunder as of 11:30am.

Well we are still under the warnings.
The eye of the storm is now just a tad
north of being due west of us here at
our house. The weather was raining
and windy for a couple hours. It cleared
up around 2:45, now all we have is wind.
The wind is about 23mph with gusts up
to 40, still no branches or debree.
It's actually quite nice. The kids are
painting and doing crafts. The pool has crested
and drained off. To the right is a picture off
the local TV news (I love my camera) it is
the Courtney Campbell Causeway, it's the
bridge we take to get to the beach from our
house. YUCK !! There are reports of some
debree and structural damage in the Tampa
area, I guess our house really is a safe haven,
no problems not even power loss so far.
They say the winds will be shifting direction
here in within a couple hours, and the high
tide will be hitting around 6pm. We are not
coastal so it's not that big of a deal to us.
We are under a thunderstorm and flood
warning/watch thru Tuesday a.m.
Although it appears the kids will have
tomorow morning?? LOL
(they are not happy !)

Well it's been a good day all in all.
Somtimes the sun was shining so bright
you wanted to go to the beach, (but the bridges
are closed LOL), and other times it was so dark
you thought it was midnight. The rain
came on and off all day long. But nothing
major. The wind picked up as the day progressed.
I personally think the heaviest winds for our neighborhood
were between 2:30pm and 5:30pm, they are
still gusting but nothing major.
We finished dinner, and the kids took their
baths and laid out their school clothes.
we are finishing off with a piece of
delicious cake Sam made today.
Lloyd caught this rainbow at 6:45pm
thought we would throw that in.
Apparently the coastal areas
will be under a threat of flooding
between 8-9 pm, due to the high tide
and the southern winds pushing waters
into the bay.

7:30pm Sun 9/17/00
	This rainbow appeared over our house at 6:30pm