And Life Goes On...

This is Dr. Rick Knabb, Director of the National Hurricane Center in Miami. This morning he made an impassioned and unprecedented appeal to those folks in mandatory evacuation areas along the coast who haven't left for higher ground to "get out if you are still able to". I have never seen the NHC make such an urgent plea. When hurricanes claim lives, about 90% are attributed to water not to wind. Close to 300 souls have been lost to this storm, most of them in Haiti, where the people had no way to escape the storm surge. Hurricane Matthew is skirting the coast of Central Florida and is Near Cape Canaveral as I write this. The prediction is for Matthew to make landfall in South Carolina. Our conditions, here in G'ville, are deteriorating rapidly now. Our forecast predicts that the wind and rain will be at it's worse, for us, around 2:00pm...about four hours from now. At least it will be daylight!
I took in all of our feeders last night and had no intentions to put them out until the storm had passed. But the birds, and squirrels looked so forlorn this morning that I I put some of them back out filled with seed/barkbutter/hummer juice. I'll bring them in again before the strong bands of the storm get to us. Wouldn't want to lose any of their feeders...heaven's no! This little HummerGirl is throughly enjoying her breakfast. I'm confident that the birds will find safe places to ride out the worst of the weather, they're really good at that! Nature is a wise and just Mother! :)

*Update* Now reports from Haiti indicate that over 850 people have been killed by this monster storm. Please remember them in you thoughts and prayers.