Shouldn’t that be “YEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRGGGGHHHH!!! Hurricane Dean comes!” ?
Good luck to you, and welcome to the board! Keep us posted if you can. Kinda cool to have an insider’s view…
My thoughts and prayers are with you and your family and neighbors.
RTFirefly, you pre-emptively took the words right out of my mouth in two hours’ time 
Thanks, Dolores Reborn for your kind thoughts. It’s kinda funky to see all the neighbors’ houses’ windows get covered with plywood. It’s a distinctly tropical scene, but it reminds me of those National Geographic pictures of bombed towns where all the rude huts are boarded up.
I can still hear the hurricane growling in the distance. posting from laptop- computer’s mummified in plastic
I’ll be keeping you posted 
Best of luck. You got a camera and a Flickr account?
the good news is although dean is one huge, mean, powerful storm; he is moving along at a nice clip. he doesn’t hang around checking the sites, he just wants to make good time to his destinations.
unlike wilma, i think it was wilma, that stayed just off shore, checking out the sites and shops, checking into a spa or two for a bit over a day.
Papa Tiger rode out Typhoon Tip on Okinawa back in 1979, which is still one of the all-time record-breaking storms. He said it moved so slowly took two and a half days for the eye to approach; when the eye came by, it took nearly eight hours to pass, which enabled him and his buddies to go restock their beer supply for the second half of the storm. Needless to say, that was apparently one heck of a five-day drunk!
I’m glad Dean isn’t moving at that same snail’s-crawl pace. Faster storms might pack more of a temporary punch, but it’s the slow ones that wreak the most havoc in the long run.
That would be wonderful- please do. I made the mistake of gifting one of our small (about the size of a beer bottle- actually, I think it WAS a beer bottle) bottles of rum to a friend- who now demands that I find him more.
My favorite rum is coconut rum mixed with Diet Coke… until I tried this stuff straight. Now I know it’s a waste to mix it with anything.
jjimm, I have a camera. I’m taking pictures and trying to record the scenes to show that I was ‘there,’ as it were. I’ll work on the flickr account afterwards.
rocking chair and Mama Tiger, yikes! I know exactly what you mean by the slow storms. I remember when Hurricane Mitch just parked in front of Belize, leaving us contemplating our almost certain oblivion, when He decided to skirt off to the south, sowing destruction upon our Honduranian neighbors.
Lightnin’, will do. When I DO drink, rum and coke is my favorite, actually. I leave straight up for special occasions!
Fun fact- my family and I are now sheltering at a friend’s house. Their house is much stronger, and also further from the sea, so here we are. It’s very hot and sticky- the clouds are roiling in the sky. Buzzing with anticipation.
Before we left our house, my dad handed me two umbrellas.
“Hold these,” he told me sternly. “We’ll be needing them.”
Yes, indeed
Good luck.
As someone who has been through many a hurricane and a few evacuations, I want to wish you good luck. Hurricanes can be fun and exciting before turning dangerous.
I’ll definately be thinking of you tonight.
good luck. batten down the hatches. stay safe.
what exactly will the umbrellas do? dean is up to 155 winds now. and leaning toward the border line. they may work inside if y’all spring a leak… outside… not so much.
Welcome, good luck, and how’s it going?
Good luck, here’s what all the reporters tell us to do during a hurricane, “hunker down!”, ack I hate myself for repeating that dang phrase.
I’m not sure exactly how one hunkers down but I believe copious amounts of alcohol are involved.
Untimelysmile, Hon, Hope it fares well with you. I’ve watched Dean on the maps since it hurtled off the African coast last week, and it has been a beast from that moment toward. I hope you weather it well, all my fingers crossed for you now.
Welcome to the boards.
You and your family will be in my thoughts until this is over.
It is kind of cool reading a first hand account of events and I’m sure the pictures will be amazing.
Hope you and your family stay safe. Good thoughts and prayers headed your way.*
Any Dopers in Mexico reading this? Sounds like it’s heading for the Mayan Riviera. Thinking of everyone in Dean’s path…
GT
*I’ll make an exception to the prayer for guests rule this once.
the eye has landed and is zipping over land. he’s about 40-60 miles inland. he did get up to cat 5.
cnn keeps showing rob in mexico… with some sort of beach brolly on the shore. that is one sturdy hut looking brolly thing. the palm trees are dancing franticly, but this thatched thing looks like it is enjoying a calm day at the beach. odd.
i’m hoping things are going well for you, untimelysmile.
I heard a reporter on the radio this morning saying that Mexico had turned off the electricity about where it was hitting. Not sure about Belize.
I’ll tell ya one thing, though. . .I was in Cancun about 20 years ago, and a buddy and I bought some marijuana from a cab driver. He took us out of the places where any tourist would ever go, to where the people “live”.
These houses there were SHACKS. And not even built with planks. They were built with sticks, maybe nailed together, maybe lashed together. Gaps in the walls. No way they had running water. Dirt streets. Lean dogs walking around. People sleeping outside. Walkways to the doors through mud.
That’s all I think about when I hear about this hurricane hitting there. Like I said. . .that was 20 years ago. Maybe things are better, but I doubt it. You might as well just be standing outdoors as being inside one of those houses. Just hope the word got out.
Welcome to the board! Here’s to y’all riding the storm out with as little damage as possible!
That’s pretty much the description of San Pedro, on Ambergris Caye, in Belize. Maybe not quite so bad, but close.
I heard last night that 6000 people evacuated from San Pedro.