I hope every one impacted by this hurricane, heeds the recommendations of officials in their area .
This is not something to ignore, no matter how many hurricanes you have been through .
I've had relatives reside in the St. Petersburg area, about 15 miles southwest of Tampa, since 1945 .
I've spent three months a year, during the summer school break from 1960 through 1972 there .
I witnessed many tropical depressions, storms and a CAT 1 hurricane during this time .
If it wasn't for the hurricane threat for 6 months of the year, I would be living there .
My parents moved to the St. Petersburg area in 1981, when my father was forced into early retirement .
The area they moved to, was 3 feet, 1 meter above average sea level .
They got flooded two times with salt water and decided to move farther inland in 1997 to Lakeland, Florida, about 35 miles east of Tampa, with an elevation of 140 feet above sea level .
In 2005, hurricane Wilma almost took their lives, they did not go to a government shelter, a high/secondary school about 2 miles away .
If the eye of this hurricane was 17 miles farther west, their home would have been a concrete slab with no structure left !!!!!!!!!!!
I figured a desert was a place where a minimal of weather threats existed .
Hot is good, cold is bad !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
