Wilma?? What the heck??

I agree, Merry Andrew. In a similar situation I would close up the house,.....

but have any of yall ever spent anytime in a shelter?

Killer Wilma builds power
Noel Randewich in Cancun, Mexico
22oct05

DEADLY Hurricane Wilma was headed last night for a direct hit on Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula as the tourist cities of Cozumel and Cancun faced devastation.

The category-four storm was packing winds of up to 240km/h and forecasters were warning it could strengthen to category five with winds of 250km/h and storm surges of 3m.

Thousands of tourists bunkered down in Mexican shelters to escape Wilma, which churned in the Caribbean on a path which could eventually take it to Florida.

Heavy rain was coming down in diagonal sheets and howling winds were buckling sturdy trees.

Last night Wilma was 165km southeast of Cozumel and slowly moving northwest.

Forecasters said it would strike densely populated southern Florida late on Sunday.

Tourists were evacuated from luxury beachfront hotels all along Mexico's "Maya Riviera" coast. The normally calm, turquoise Caribbean seas heaved and Wilma dumped rain on streets patrolled by soldiers ordering people to take cover.

Described by forecasters as extremely dangerous, Wilma killed 10 people in mudslides in Haiti earlier in the week.

Cuba evacuated 220,000 people, and residents of southern Florida stocked up on drinking water and petrol to prepare for Wilma, which hammered the coasts of Mexico and Belize with winds of around 240km/h.

Mexican authorities said close to 22,000 tourists and residents had been evacuated from low-lying coastal areas.

In one gymnasium shelter in Cancun, 1600 people spent the night on mattresses on the floor. One local entrepreneur sold T-shirts, perhaps prematurely, with the words "I survived Hurricane Wilma" for $US10 ($13).

About 100 bored-looking foreign tourists stood talking in groups under chandeliers in the cavernous marble lobby of the Hotel Royal Porto Real, near the seafront in Playa del Carmen, another resort just south of Cancun.

"It was meant to be the fortnight holiday of a lifetime," said 28-year-old Simon Hayes, one of four friends on holiday from Britain. "This is not how I envisaged it working out."

Conditions were far tougher for hundreds of migrant construction workers, mostly from the impoverished southern state of Chiapas, who were evacuated from outdoor camps and building sites.

In a kindergarten near Playa del Carmen's beachfront, 50 men sat on the concrete floor of a classroom, too cramped for them to lie down, digging into cans of donated tuna fish with their hands.

"This sucks," said Juan Cruz Perez, a 21-year-old migrant metal worker from the Gulf state of Tabasco.

Wilma became the strongest Atlantic storm on record in terms of barometric pressure yesterday. It weakened to a category-four hurricane, then picked up again as it headed for Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula, where it was expected to hit early this morning.

The hurricane season has six weeks left, and has already spawned three of the most intense storms on record. Hurricane experts say the Atlantic has entered a period of heightened storm activity that could last 20 more years.

Wilma was expected to miss Gulf of Mexico oil and petrol facilities battered by hurricanes Katrina and Rita in August and September, but Florida's orange groves were at risk.

Reuters

Over the weekend, Wilma is expected to come under the influence of stronger westerly winds aloft blowing across the Gulf, shifting the hurricane toward southern Florida by Monday. The interaction with land as the hurricane brushes past the Yucatan Peninsula plus the increasing influence of westerly shear and even some mid-level dry air intrusion could weaken Wilma considerably before it directly affects Florida.