Friday, Sept. 5th
12pm - Brown Bag Lecture - Native Grasses - Goodwood Plantation.
7pm - Railroad Square: First Friday Gallary Hop - Railroad Square
9pm -  Eric Culberson at BBC - Bradfordville Blues Club
10pm - Obama Soul Jam! - Amenra’s - 812 South Monroe, Tallahasee

Saturday, Sept. 6th
8am -  Market Square: Farmers Market - Market Square - Timberlain Road
8am - Rummage Sale - Chrome Diva’s - Golden Corral Parking Lot on North Monroe
8:30am - Responsible Dog Ownership Day - Tom Brown Park
6pm - FSU Football vs. Western Carolina - home game - Doke Campbell Stadium
7pm -  Folk Coffeehouse - Stephen Foster State Park - White Springs
8pm - First Saturday Irish Session - Gill’s Tavern
9pm - Charles Atkins Blues Band - Bradfordville Blues Club

Sunday, Sept. 7th
3pm - Concert: John McCutcheon - TCC: Turner Auditorium
7pm - Glory Bound Gospel Sing - American Legion Hall - Lake Ella

For details on these, and many more Tallahassee and North Florida events, click on the “What’s on in North Florida?” link at the top of this page.

As Hurricane Gustav heads toward the Louisiana and Mississippi gulf coasts, I hope that our honorable politicians, and especially the presidential candidates, keep themselves out of the effected region. Getting ready for a storm of this magnitude and responding after it hits, is serious business. The last thing that emergency workers need right now is for some opportunistic politician to to show up with their traveling security and media circus and disrupt their vital work.

Meet the pile. This is actually less than half of the wet and ruined stuff from a neighbors house. We took three truckloads of wet stuff that smelled like the creek to the dump yesterday from that house, and another 5 truckloads from another. “It’s only stuff” my friend said, “and my friends are showing up and driving my junk to the dump. What could be better?” Remember, it’s only stuff and most of us have way too much of that.

Today I’m doing a little excavation trying to solve the drainage problem that flooded my studio a little bit during the last storm. For the record, building with a slab on grade is a bad idea for a geo that is prone to flooding.

I’m updating my “hurricane checklist” to add one more important item. When a storm is coming and there is a chance that you may have to evacuate, it’s very important to have a designated “check-in” person somewhere outside the storm who can keep your friends and family updated about your health and welfare.

The American Red Cross has an on-line database up to help storm victims list themselves as safe and sound. Click here for the service, but be aware that there is a certificate problem with the Red Cross site and your browser may protest at making the connection.

While many neighborhoods in Leon, Gadsden and Wakulla counties were hit hard by Tropical Storm Fay, the sweet little locally owned shops on Lake Ella were especially hard hit.

These shops are located in what were originally cottages owned by the Tallahassee Motor Hotel, a very popular lodging on the other side of Monroe street torn down in the early 1980’s to make room for more tacky chain restaurants.

Some of the shops had several feet of standing water inside and a lot of inventory and fixtures are ruined.  The benefit Sunday will include music, food and some great “storm” sales on merchandise from the shops.  This is a great opportunity to support locally owned Tallahassee businesses and get some great bargains.  There is a suggested donation of $5 for entry into the event.

Wikimedia Commons image of the Lake Ella fountain in happier times by Tim Ross

While we are all busy drying out and picking up, it seems to me to be a good time to say thanks to the unsung hero’s of our community.  While most of us were staying out of the rain and wind during Tropical Storm Fay, utility workers from our area electric utilities were out on the road, doing a dangerous job in really bad weather.

After Fay passed, all utilities in my neighborhood were back in service by Tuesday morning.  When you look at all the trees down in our area, and all the work that had to be done, that’s really remarkable.

City utility workers earn (according to the City web site) between $8.56 and $19.61 an hour.  That’s small money for doing this dangerous, necessary work.  So three cheers for our utility workers, whether their trucks say “City of Tallahassee”, “Talquin Electric”, “Florida Power” or something else.

Please join me in saying thanks for making all of our lives better.

The photo accompaing this article is not of a local utility crew.  It’s of a lineman working in my old hometown of Urbana, Illinois.  Photograph taken by Dori.

Updated 8/31/2008 with additional content.

With Tropical Storm Fay a memory (except for the power still being off at my well…sigh), and with a new tropical storm brewing, I figured it was a good time to put out my personal hurricane checklist.  I know that I’ve missed some things so please, add you suggestions as comments and I’ll include them in the next update.  You can download a copy of this list here.   Stay dry and stay safe.

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The TallyCast Hurricane Checklist

http://www.tallycast.com


Essentials

Water - I like to have at least 4 gallons of drinking water for each person in the household.  Remember that after a storm, power outages may cause your well or even the city water system to fail.  Without water, you can’t flush the toilet.  Having a bathtub full of water is a very good idea, and by pouring a bucket of water into the toilet, it will flush.  Believe me when I say this is very important if your power is off for several days.  My friend Tom suggests putting empty garbage cans under the eaves where the water runs off your roof.  You probably wouldn’t want to drink the stuff, but it will work fine for flushing toilets.

Light - LED flashlights are awesome.  I recommend LED headlights that use AAA batteries.  Don’t wait until the last minute because  they disappear fast from the stores when a hurricane is expected.

Food - Think foods that your family will eat and which can be stored safely without refrigeration.  Canned fish and meat; crackers, canned vegetables, peanut butter are all favorites in our storm stash.  Don’t forget to have a couple of can openers in the food bag.

Medicine - Remember that after a storm, expect widespread power outages for as long a a week or two.  If a storm is expected, make sure that you have enough of your essential medicines to last at least a couple of weeks.

First Aid Kit - Having a waterproof first aid kit is vital.  Get one that has basic supplies that you know how to use. 

Cash - Remember that after the storm, banks and ATM’s may be out of service for several days until phone and power lines are repaired. 

Battery Radio - You can find inexpensive radios for as little as $20 that pickup AM, FM and the government weather stations.  Be sure to have a few extra batteries too.

Gasoline - If a storm is coming, be sure to fill up your car.  Don’t wait until the last minute where there are going to be lines at the stations and you risk the possibility of the gasoline supply running out.



The DRY Bag

I use a waterproof dry bag made for canoe touring but anything will work as long as it’s waterproof.  If you have nothing else, use “zipper” style plastic bags.  Here’s what goes in my DRY Bag:

Personal papers - birth certificates, drivers license, insurance policies, passport, social security card, medical records, etc.

Evacuation

Once, when a hurricane was active in the Gulf of Mexico, I choose to not evacuate from Dog Island.  I was stupid!  If the weather bureau or local authorities suggests evacuation, you should grab your supplies and your dry bag and head for higher ground.

When a storm is coming and there is a chance that you may have to evacuate, it’s very important to have a designated “check-in” person somewhere outside the storm who can keep your friends and family updated about your health and welfare.

The American Red Cross has an on-line database up to help storm victims list themselves as safe and sound. Click here for the service, but be aware that there is a certificate problem with the Red Cross site and your browser may protest at making the connection.
Resources

We suggest you add these sites to your bookmark list

National Weather Service:  http://www.weather.gov/

Tallahassee Office of the National Weather Service:  http://www.srh.noaa.gov/tlh/

Florida Division of Emergency Management:  http://www.floridadisaster.org/index.asp

Florida Road Closure Information:  http://www.dot.state.fl.us/publicinformationoffice/traffic/trafficwarnings.htm

American Red Cross - Tallahassee Chapter:  http://www.tallyredcross.org/ (note:  in August of 2008, this site was “under construction”)

Tallahassee Democrat On-Line:  http://www.tdo.com

This is a repost of the video report from yesterday. This version has been reformatted for iPods and iTunes.

Today has been a road day in my neighborhood. There were trees down that needed cutting, one road that was flooded and one that was washed out in several areas. The flooded road is going to have to stay flooded until the water percolates but the washed out road was calling for rock.

The rock arrived but the dump truck sunk into the wet road. Pulling the dump truck out of the hole put three breaks in a water line. It’s a wet and soggy world we live in.

Today, there was more water dumped on my neighborhood during T.S. Fay, than any time since I moved here in the early 1970’s. After the storm, the swamp had expanded in size and the road was bubbling. There is a video file (quicktime) attached to this file as a video podcast.

There were dozens of these down the road. Was it water draining? A spring that sprung? bubbles from displaced air (howii’s idea).

It’s wet in the swamp this afternoon. For the first time in many years, the studio flooded. Jose and I dug a ditch and things are better, but we’re getting 3 or four inches an hour. Power, water and cable internet are out. I’m writing this on a nokia n810 internet tablet leashed to an evdo cell phone via bluetooth.

Stay dry and stay off the roads. I’m back to the shovel and ditch maintenance.

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Tropical Storm Fay is a few hours away now. We’re getting ready. One of the things I have in quantity are LED headlights. I have owned a wide selection. This unit from Rayovac works as good as any and better than most. One of the more annoying thigns about headlights is glare; either the glare in your own eyes or the eyes of the person you are looking at. With this unit, you still need to avoid pointing it at your friend, but at least the glare isn’t in your eyes.

The first one of these I bought, it cost $18.99. The price has gone down a lot. The price from Amazon is for two headlights. If you live in hurricane country, having a spare is not a bad thing.

I expect that this deal won’t last long. I bought my first one about 3 years ago. It’s not the brightest one I have, but the batteries (I use rechargeable) last a long time and they seem to hold up pretty good. In addition to red and white LED’s, it has a incandescent spotlight that I rarely use

The other inexpensive LED headlights on the market that I’ve tried (and I’ve tried most of them), are uncomfortable to use because of the glare.

If you would rather burn gas and drive that hybrid into town, you may find this one at a big box store. If you order from amazon, a nice package delivery person will bring it to your very mailbox.

The deal is Amazon’s and could change or disappear at anytime.

This is a photo of the Florida Red Mangrove; an important tree in the South Florida coastal ecosystem. Why then, is a red mangrove tree thriving on the beach at Shell Point?  You can learn about this tree and the real story about what’s going on in Wakulla County by reading the Wakulla Independent Reporter, a publication put out by local hero, Julia Hanway.  In the Reporter, Ms. Hanway covers the real news and the unreported stories from this beautiful sandy part of North Florida.

In the TallyCast, I often poke a little fun at what I call the “Dead Tree Media ©.”  While most of the local newspapers deserve it, the Reporter is an exception and deserves the support of the citizens of Wakulla County and all of us who care about this amazing part of the land of flowers.

If you live in Wakulla County, look for the Wakulla Independent Report in your mailbox.  If you want to read the paper online, you can download a copy at http://www.wakullareporter.com/.  The story about the red mangrove tree is in the Summer 2008 edition.

“Dead Tree Media©” is a copyrighted feature of the Tallycast.  The tree in the image above is from the US Government via WikiMedia and is NOT the one growing on Shell Point.  You can see the real deal by reading the Wakulla Independent Reporter.