Hello Dolly!

I grew up in a land-locked state - Missouri - and, except for spending most of one year in Alaska, lived there my whole life until June 2006, when we moved to South Texas. I've experienced my fair share of natural disasters - in Missouri, an ice storm that left some people without power for weeks, a couple tornadoes that left me shaking in fear in a basement (yes, I have an irrational fear of tornadoes), and in Alaska, a very minor earthquake while eating mediocre Italian food.

As it appears right now, I'm about to experience my first hurricane. Last year, there was one storm (Dean?) that originally looked like it was going to get us, but ended up just giving us a little rain. This time, Dolly looks like she's headed straight for Brownsville, just 60 miles down the road from where I sit right now.

As I type this, the sun is shining, there is no wind, and a few clouds are just starting to appear from the east. I feel totally unprepared with no idea what to expect. We have batteries, we're filling up all of our water jugs we can find with water from the tap (NO we don't drink bottled water), we just went to the grocery store on Sunday and have lots of food to get us through (I think). The gas tank in the van is full. When Eric gets off work, we're going to the store to check for any last-minute provisions.

The prediction is that it will hit as a Category 1, and there are no calls for evacuations, at least not yet. Eric lived in Houston for years, and so he's been through these before, and I'm trusting him on this. Wish us luck!