Weather

Ok, now I'm really mad! Let me ask you a question. What usually follows the first day of school? Anybody? Raise your hand. Don't be shy. Usually the first day of school is followed by the second day of school. (See? I knew you knew it!) Not for us. Our first day of school was followed by a hurricane day! That's right. What should have been the second day of school ended up being a day off because of Tropical Storm Fay.

I realize that hurricanes and tropical storms are serious weather conditions. If it had been a hurricane, I guess I could have dealt with it better. But this is just a tropical storm. They are projecting it to become a category 1 storm which means it will have winds between 74 and 85 miles per hour. I'm not suggesting that those winds can't be damaging, but after dealing with Charley, Frances, Ivan and Jean a few years back, all of which were Cat 3 or better, this panic over a tropical storm is really pulling my chain!

It was a beautiful day here. The sun was shining. There was a breeze and some rain later in the day but nothing that I would consider life threatening. Usually the reason we have to have the day off is because all the people down south in the areas that are getting hit hard by the storm evacuate north. Since I'm in the center part of the state, people evacuating make it as far as us then stop. The schools end up being used as shelters so we can't be there if people are coming for shelter. This time was no different. Several of our county schools were open to the public as shelters from the storm.

The wind had picked up about 6pm. But again, we've hand thunderstorms that have caused as much, if not more, problems then what we experienced today.

When the kids found out yesterday that there would be no school today, they were all smiles. I told them that it's ok to smile, but to remember, we have to make up this day so that means one of our days off will be changed to a school day. Some of the smiles disappeared. Some smiles shortened. And a few of my kids just kept smiling. They'll whine about it later when they have to come to school on a day that they planned on having off.

I got a call this afternoon saying that there will be school tomorrow. As long as the storm doesn't make any sudden changes in direction or pick up speed to make it a category 2 or 3 storm (which is unlikely as the storm is over land now and that usually causes it to lose speed), it'll be back to business as usual tomorrow. There better not be any changes. If I get up early, I might as well go to work!