Dodged a bullet

[newsguy]

sorry, folks. was on vacation for two weeks. thought i posted this here last monday, but apparently it didn't take. i appreciate everyone's concern. here's what i wrote:

i was up in D.C. area visiting family/friends and went back to FLA early, able to get on the last flight out ahead of the storm late thursday night. my wife, who typically is in school up in gainesville (north central florida) has been with me in clearwater this summer doing externships. we live right on tampa bay and were in a mandatory evacuation zone. however, her externship the past 2 week has been at pinellas county animal services (she's in between 3rd and 4th year of veterinary medical school) and felt like she had to help prepare there for the storm and was planning to ride out the storm in our apartment with our animals. i got in at 1 a.m. friday, did what i could to get the apartment hurricane ready, was packed everyone up and headed to gainesville at 6 a.m. traffic was surprisingly light as people apparently evacuated on thursday, when the roads/interstate were a parking lot. when i left clearwater, i really didn't expect to have much of an apartment to come back to. we were directly in the projected path of a cat 4 storm. it was expected that even in gainesville we might get it at up to cat 2 strength. but as u all know by now, the storm unexplicably took a hard right a few hours before it was gonna hit tampa bay area, and slammed into the port charlotte area with 145 mph+ winds. those of us in tampa bay were very lucky. those 2 hours to the south were devastated. keep them in your thoughts and prayers.

keith