Well South

 

If this track holds it's as good as the news can get with this storm.  It keeps the surge out of the mouth of Tampa Bay.

It's bad news for people that have had too much of it lately, especially the Port Charlotte area.

Oddly, being on the North side of this storm is going to be worse for the winds thanks to the expected wrap around of shear and dry air causing disorganization to the South side of the storm.

We've been ordered to evacuate.  But to where?  With what?

I hate to break it to the local authorities, but we don't have the means to live anywhere but where we live.  We don't have the funds to plan a vacation let alone take an unplanned one!

But I know something the local disaster officials don't seem to.  The lay of the land.

We're not in a flood zone.  Our worry is wind.  We're not looking to get wind worse than Irma, which we survived just fine here, so...

The evacuation zones in Florida are clearly broken.  There's people who need to get out because of storm surge.  There's people who don't and they're both in zone A.

There's been ample evidence that the state and counties are not following their own rules for defining the zones thanks to regulatory capture from the insurance industry.

These zones have become politically defined not practically.

So people who SHOULD evacuate don't because they can see someone in the same zone who will be OK not evacuating.