Irma Update from Tampa: “So Far So Good”

by Scott Creighton

As I write this, Irma has been downgraded to a Cat 2 and is still somewhere over Naples. Already here in Tampa we are seeing pretty good gusts of wind up to 50mph and sporadic rain. One of my neighbors took off to go ride it out with his sister but the rest are still here in the neighborhood with us.

Irma’s heading due north at about 14mph and is expected to be here late Sunday / early Monday morning. They are saying she will still be a hurricane by time she gets up here but I figure if she says over land, more likely, she’ll be a tropical storm by then since the eye is already collapsing.

It looks like Miami has already seen the worst of it and I hope there are few casualties. As bad as it was, by making landfall where she did, Irma saved a bunch of lives over there. Had she hit them directly as a Cat 4 or worse, it would have been very, very bad.

We have not seen the worst of it yet here in Tampa. However, since it made landfall where it did, we were spared a bit as well. I was worried about earlier predictions and projected plots that had it bumping along on the west coast and making landfall at the mouth of the Hillsborough bay and that would have been very bad as well.

Right now the only damage to my happy hovel is some branches are down and a tree fell a little while ago in the back yard. It missed the fence and the house so we’re lucky.. so far.

My little feral homeless cat I’ve been feeding is sitting on my neighbor’s carport looking at me through the window asking “WTF is this?” but he seems alright for now.

No neighbors have suffered any structural damage as of yet. None that I can see anyway.

I will be up later when it hits for real, as much of it that’s left by then, so I will try to give you guys another update then if TECO hasn’t gone belly-up.

It’s like that joke about the guy who fell off a 20 story building. A guy on the tenth floor heard him say “So far so good” as he passed by the window.

Well… so far so good.

Oh yeah, by the way, the Redskins suck again this year. So, life goes on I suppose.

On that note, a couple years ago a guy came down here to perform during the Half-time show of the Super Bowl. It was raining but that didn’t bother him. He played live. Not some pre-recorded, auto-tuned bullshit we see time and time again with such big shows that are broadcast live. His name was Prince and he’s no longer here. But I thought it would be fitting to have a listen to what I believe is the first live performance (or at least the earliest recorded performance) of the closing song he performed that night. Seems fitting.

When I was a junior in high school, Prince was a favorite of mine. This video is from some little venue in 1983 that same year.