2, 5, 8, 11 – Life on the Gulf coast… #hurricanedorian

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2, 5, 8, 11. If you live in hurricane country (and are in the Eastern time zone) you know what those numbers mean.

NHC update times, when a storm is close to the US. It’s when they put out the updated track and storm info.

Your whole schedule becomes fixated on making sure you can get to the TV or an internet-connected device around those hours so you can check the latest spaghetti model.

Which is the schedule of our lives right now.

I grew up in Florida but never experienced a direct hit as a kid. I heard stories about unwelcomed visitors such as Camille and Donna, but while I faithfully traced out every storm’s path on the chart on the Publix paper grocery bag, I was never “lucky” enough to experience a hurricane.

What the hell did I know? I thought it’d be exciting, right?

Fuck.

Me.

Adult me wants to slap that child, and it’s a wonder my parents and grandparents never did just that. Then again, they never went through the eyewall of Hurricane Charley, like Hubby and I did. They weren’t in a stilt house right on the Gulf of Mexico during the No-Name Storm of ’93 while the waters rose and a tornado went by.

My parents got their first “real” taste of tropical hell back during Hurricane Irma. There’s nothing eerier than standing on my parents’ front porch and the only traffic going by on the busy road they live on is emergency vehicles and power company line trucks. That’s the house I grew up in, and let me tell you, even in the middle of the night it was never so fucking quiet.

It was also really scary not being able to find gas. We were lucky we were able to pull into a gas station where a tanker arrived and we sat and waited in line. In the Tampa Bay region, we just do not get a lot of direct hits.

For good or bad, Irma scared the crap out of people and made them pay attention and take precautions.

We evacuated from Irma, because this house (my grandparents’ house) is old and not tied down to the ground. It is a very sturdily built wood-frame structure my grandfather built from a Jim Walters kit. (If you can remember those, you just dated yourself. Don’t worry–I won’t tell anyone.)

#HereWeGoAgain

I literally JUST finally got my office unpacked and put together in the wake of Irma two FUCKING YEARS AGO.

The generator’s running, we’ve got food, bottled water, and batteries, and I’m dusting off the “packing list” for what gets bagged up in case the house doesn’t survive, so that hopefully those things won’t get ruined by water. The only channel on TV right now is The Weather Channel.

Dorian is supposed to hit Cat 3, but its path is still uncertain. I’m hoping for an eyewall at least 60 miles south of Tampa Bay, or 60 miles north. Either way should keep us out of the eyewall and out of the worst of the wind.

The only good thing is coming from the east coast to the west coast, it tends to help take some of the punch out of the storm. I’m mostly worried about wind. I don’t know if we can get as lucky as we did two big storms in a row, and I really don’t want to try our luck.

Stay safe, peeps.


Farborn (Maxim Colonies 2)

NOTE: If you pre-ordered this from Amazon, you might have received the wrong file version, and massive apologies for that! You should have 28 numbered chapters, NOT 25. If you got the wrong version, please delete it and re-download it. If you read the wrong version, get the correct one and please back up a few chapters because you missed a bunch.

(Sci-fi/futuristic, M/NB, m-preg.)

He’s not from around here…

Writing As: Lesli Richardson

Release Date: July 30, 2019

Buy Links:

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All E-book Purchase Links:

https://books2read.com/lr-farborn

Print: Amazon

Click here to read a sneak peek!

Description

He’s not from around here…

Davies McKellan is a man without a true home. The cocky mining contractor navigator has spent his entire adult life roaming the stars and refusing to be tied down by anyone.

But that doesn’t come without cost. Like loneliness.

When Davies makes his first run to the planet Pfahrn, he meets Olarte, a Pfahrn who intrigues him in ways he never dreamed possible.

Except duplicity and deadly secrets are a killer combo that’ll make any man rethink his past. And if the eight-foot-tall green alien is Davies’ future, he might be down for that. He’s got priorities, though.

Like making sure they uncover the truth first, and don’t die in the process.


Poly (mmf, contemporary romance)

Description

I love my husband…and his boyfriend.

And he loves us. Love isn’t always neat and tidy.

Unfortunately, there are those who don’t understand. When we finally decide to be a family together, it means we have to fight to keep what we love before others rip us apart.

Buy Links:

All E-Book Links:
https://books2read.com/LR-poly

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Print: Amazon


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What’s coming next?


Coming Soon | Pre-Orders | Series Info
Box Sets | Print

2, 5, 8, 11 – Life on the Gulf coast… #hurricanedorian

2 thoughts on “2, 5, 8, 11 – Life on the Gulf coast… #hurricanedorian

  • August 31, 2019 at 11:44 am
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    Being in the true middle of the peninsula we have to keep watching from both directions and even a brush on either coast usually brings us rain and winds. Charley was frightening but it moved fast. Irma was like some kind of horror show that didn’t end for hours. Right now it is looking better but we could still get some wind. Probably get rain and Polk county is already full of standing water and a river at flood stage.

    • September 4, 2019 at 3:19 pm
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      Yeah, I saw the flooding issue on the news over here. Irma suuuuucked. We’ve had some gusts and intermittent showers over here but nothing bad.

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