ernesto's coming

it's monday morning and i feel like i work in a weather station instead of an I/T department. all everyone talks about is hurricane ernesto. everyone has the storm tracking up on their PC and there are little groups of people huddling. it's like no work gets done.

actually, for my company there is a ton of work to do to prepare for a hurricane. we are in a phosphate plant right on tampa bay. gypsum is the byproduct of potash and we have huge mountains of gypsum. it's slightly radioactive and we have to take major preparations to make sure it stays put and doesn't get blown away. in a 2004 hurricane part of it spilled into the bay and there were environmental implications. also, our product itself is just a bunch of tiny rocks piled up and we need to make sure it doesn't blow away - we need to sell this stuff.

ernesto is supposed to hit us tuesday evening. we are all prepared to be home on wednesday. it is only category one which will be lots of wind and rain. they will close schools. we can't be at work because our plant is in an evacuation zone since it is right on the water. right now it looks like it will hit near miami.

for me, this is a bit touchy, i am supposed to be getting on a plane on friday. i go from tampa to miami to san francisco. the predictions right now look like the winds will still be around miami on thursday. if this path stays and the storm slows down at all, i may have a problem going away for the weekend.