FRANCES

It's very strange, here on a beautiful summer day, waiting for such an horrendous storm.

Take care, Southeasterners!

Please pray for my son, Tim, in West Palm.

Hoping my Florida,Ga and Carolina friends stay safe.

Drop my son off at St. Pete Clearwater Campus just after Charley, now this. I am tap dancing as fast as I can, as my wife is asking me, "tell me why we, you, wanted our son to play baseball in Florida?"

Hope all is safe!

al,

i am not far from that campus so i can tell you how it is here. Not bad at all! so far some wind gust, not much rain yet. we are expecting some later today, but it doesnt sound too bad.Fla. is still a GREAT place to play ball!

I can just imagine what it is like south of us today. We already have a fallen tree in the back yard as of an hour ago. It is getting worse here and is supposed to subside later tonight. My thoughts and prayers for those south of us here.
Now comes the concern for the son who is in school in the panhandle. Thats the next place for the storm to go after it passes through.

So far, so good here in Orlando; we're about halfway through. Mine came home from the North to help get the house boarded up, and because I wasn't happy about leaving him in manufactured housing in the middle of a forest. So the next worry is how he gets back there in a slow-moving tropical storm!

Frances is making news lots of places, my stepson just called from London to check on us. The storm stranded thousands of tourists here (the airports were all closed as of noon Friday), and at airports all over with people who would have been arriving this weekend.

Unlike Charley, who came through at "hurricane pace", this baby is so big and so slow, it's pounding for 12+ hours in the same place. There won't be many peope in Florida who aren't impacted by this storm.

Here in Kissimmee, it is hour 24 of the 30+ mph winds, but unlike Charley, many people in neighborhood decided to leave the area and head north. There are only about 3 houses out of 30 that are occupied as of friday. Many people have lost tarps and plastic sheeting off the roof. This thing is just crawling along, this seems like a blizzard. I lived through the blizzard of 96 in the north central mountains of PA and that was a deciding factor to leave that area. There is a retention pond behind the house and as of 5 o'clock tonight it was up over 5 feet and I'm sure that it will continue to get higher before it returns to normal. Lots of prayers for our neighborhoods to the east and south of here who just continue to get pounded by this monster.

Fan1516....thank you...Brian said the same thing. It was not bad at all....Now Ivan is coming....Whew...

I agree with you, Pinellas County has got to be one of the better places to play baseball. We are excited.

Thanks again,
Al McCormick
alm@mostvaluableplayer.biz