Saturday Evening Update: The Shelter Opens for Refugees

As night begins to fall here we have taken a couple of significant steps. After another visit to the college to check on the status of boarding windows (about 80% done and hopefully they are back tomorrow to finish), we drove around looking for a spot to put the car as the likely flooding at our place would destroy the engine (the salt water).

We found a couple of good spots and ultimately picked the Truman Bodden Sports Complex in George Town. You can easily find all the high ground now as the cars are all parked there in mass. We thought we would drive the car over tomorrow but when we spoke with an officer at the sports complex he said it would fill up tonight. We were very encouraged by the fact that all of the police and civic vehicles are parked in the field there at the complex. The field is about three feet higher than the parking lot but the lot was quickly filling up and the officer there told us the lot didn't get any flooding from Ivan. There are trees but at some point you just pick your poison and if trees are being uprooted our little car is going flying all on its own.

We drove back to Elsa and Keith's (they arrived back on Island yesterday) and secured a ride from Elsa. She followed us back to the complex where we parked, disconnected the battery and put it in the back. The car is locked up and as secure as we can make it, if the little guy is meant to survive he will. Katie wants to call the car Andreas. If he survives, Andreas it is; if he dies, his name is Money down the drain.

We also welcomed four refugee's from Cayman Brac into our home to ride out the storm. Josie and her three adopted children will be with us for the next couple of days. Our neighbor Kathleen is a worker with the humane society and they need foster homes for their cats during the storm so with the news that Kira, who is allergic to cats, would not be on Island and needing a place to stay, we volunteered. Josie apparently lost her babies and is now a surrogate mother to three as of now unnamed kittens all about 4 or 5 weeks old. They are in our downstairs bathroom for now but will come up stairs tomorrow in case of flooding. Katie is absolutely atwitter about the kitties. We keep telling ourselves we have to be brave for the cats now so they don't get scared.

The latest track again has Dean moving a little south but it has slowed to 17 miles an hour so good and bad news. We want it to track further south and move faster so the effects aren't as long lasting. By comparison Ivan was five miles off the coast and moving at 3 miles an hour. Tomorrow will be the big day for tracking as the hurricane should hit Jamaica around 2 p.m. and being over land and hitting the mountains there could affect its course. We may update late tonight and certainly by early tomorrow. Will be going to sleep early today since unlikely to get much sleep tomorrow or for next several days as we have been warned that the sound of the hurricane is overwhelming, and then post hurricane, the generators are extremely loud.

The hardest part about all of this, right now, is the waiting. In no other natural disaster do you have so much prior knowledge, which is a blessing and a curse.