"Marty from Florida" marty@-x-x-x- remove -x-x- worth.net wrote in message
...
I originally planned on taking the plane north to Georgia, with a departure
on Friday, Oct. 21st. On Thursday the 20th, the storm had stalled and was
weakening over Mexico, with a possible landfall someone near my front
driveway at 2:00pm on Monday. Saturday the storm broke into the Gulf, and
NWS predicted it would weaken, arriving on Florida's west coast as a CAT one
hurricane. This normally means as it moves over land to our shores, it would
slow to a tropical storm. It didn't.

Marty is exactly right. Using exactly the same logic after listening to
the same forecasts, I initially came to the decision to leave the shutters off
of my patio door (I live just east of Lantana airport). At sundown the day
before the storm, I came to my senses and installed the shutters in the dark.
Someone in Boca Raton left the shutter off of their patio door (like I almost
did) and was crushed when it blew in. Marty took a risk with an insured Cessna;
I was about to take that same risk with my home and my life. Which one of us is
the smarter?

Aircraft ownership cuts both ways. While preparing for our FIRST hurricane
last year, I was reflecting that I was happy to be a renter pilot because that
was one less thing to worry about. Three weeks later when the NEXT hurricane
was bearing down on us, I was thinking how nice it would be to own a plane so
that I could fly me and the Mrs. out of the path of the storm (the roads were
hopelessly jammed).

Sorry Marty. Glad you are OK. There are more airplanes out there.


Vaughn (Lantana FL)