SMS from a Hurricane

My Mother lives in West Palm Beach, FL and has experienced many hurricanes. She has however never seen a hurricane during daylight hours. They have always hit around 9pm-4am. Hurricane Wilma is the first exception to this coincidence.

She has been sending me periodic SMS messages (AKA: texting, or text messaging) from her cellphone. She does not get good enough reception to actually place voice calls, but she is able to keep the family up to date with this simple little miracle of modern technology.

Here are the messages as she has sent them: (Keep in mind that they are typed on a number pad not a keyboard.)

9:55 am

Hi honey hurricane is here. We are in the eye now.

10:17 am

We are in the calm of the storm now.

10:20 am

Screens down. Shed gone. (Her swimming pool is inside a screen room. They had a small shed where they kept lawn & garden tools and Mom's abundant supply of Christmas decorations.)

11:26 am

Backside of hurricane now.

11:27 am (voice call)

Tom (her husband) ran out during the calm and collected as much of the goods from the shed as possible. They gathered the screen frames for repair. The avocado tree has been stripped of it's fruit. They have a small generator that is running the refrigerator, coffee pot, TV/Digital Satellite, and a few small fans. She's really glad that she hasn't had to see this during the day every time. It's really amazing to see a 360 well lit view of what she normally only hears through the walls, or sees on TV.

12:26 pm

This is really bad. Avocado tree is now on my car.

12:30 pm

Scary. This is far worse than ever before.

1:06 pm (my reply)

I've been posting your msgs to my website.

1:11 pm (my reply)

I am surprised that this one is so bad. On satellite it doesn't look as bad as last year.

1:32 pm

Sustained winds are down now, but gusts are still quite strong.

1:44 pm

Newscasters are saying that the severity of the backside of this storm was a surprise.