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Hi y’all.

Coming at you with a message from Gulfport, Florida, where we’re — as of the 5 a.m. update — slightly north of the eye of Hurricane Milton, but still well within the cone.

Are you tired? I’m tired. So. Damn. Tired. The past 11 days have been a lot. Helene is barely gone and here we are again, but worse.

20 years ago — give or take a couple of months — I lived in the Gulfport arts district, at 58th Street and 23rd Avenue South. Hurricane Charley had Gulfport — and all of Tampa Bay — in his sights.

The police drove through downtown Gulfport, trying to make people evacuate. I remained steadfast. These things turn, they change, I told my friends and family when they called. No one really knows where they’ll go.

With Charley, Gulfport was extremely lucky. Charley turned. The Fort Myers area? Not so much. That’s the suck with hurricanes: When one spares you, it damns someone else.

For the past 20 years, my position on hurricane forecasting has only hardened. Local TV news has devolved into weather terrorism, invested in keeping everyone watching to get good ratings and charge more for advertising.

National news doesn’t do much better, and for years well-intentioned friends and family from out of state would call, text, or email with messages of concern with each new storm.

Port St. Joe isn’t anywhere near Gulfport, I would reply. Or: It’s a tropical storm; we don’t evacuate for those. My message has been unwavering: Please don’t panic.

These things turn.

These things do turn. That, I should note, is still true. But — as I sit, way too awake for way too many hours — that turn is a hollow victory.  A storm of Milton’s magnitude simply damns another community. Sparing us curses another lovely place with its own lovely hopes and dreams and history.

I don’t want to see anything devastated. I know that’s not a reality we can have, but wouldn’t it be nice?

And, an aside: To most of the rest of the world, Florida is homogenous in both political ideologies and geography. To Floridians, this simply isn’t true. We’re a big, wide vast state. Hurricanes in one part may not touch another part. And, as someone posted on The Gabber Newspaper’s social media, when everyone’s covered with mud, you can’t see their party cards.

These days I don’t get calls with every hurricane.

That’s good. When I do get calls now, it’s often from people who aren’t quite certain how seriously to take the storm. I am, apparently, the person who will talk you down from the news.

And that’s fair. In Florida Spectacular, I talk about Florida and our relationship with hurricanes. I say that “we’re a swinging-trapeze mess of ‘whoo-hoo, gonna rain a bit, let’s enjoy that day off, Hurricane Party!’ and ‘OH MY GOD WE ARE ALL GOING TO DIE!’,” and I stand by that.

Floridians take storms far too casually and far too seriously, if that makes sense.

With Hurricane Milton, in Gulfport, I’m pretty much telling people to leave.

Here’s what I ask them:

1. Are you in an evacuation zone?
2. Do you have hurricane windows?
3. Do you live in a block house?

If the answer to #1 is yes, it’s a no-brainer. GO. Evacuate. Your things don’t matter as much as your life. I promise.

From that point forward, it gets trickier. The Saffir-Simpson scale is all about wind. If you have hurricane windows, you are likely in good shape. Unless, of course, you don’t live in a block house.

So many of Gulfport’s most charming homes are about 99 years old now, which means they are wood frame and also susceptible to Milton. Which means that yes, if you have hurricane windows and a wood frame home, you are likely to see damage.

It’s hard to discern. My advice to people is always this:
If you’re in an evac zone, leave. Do not pass go; do not collect $200. Take the things you’ll regret losing the most and leave. And leave now.

If you’re not in an evac zone but are in the cone, take a moment. Is your home block? If so, you can feel better. Do you have hurricane windows? If yes, great. But, if you said no, and you can’t board them up and you’re in the cone, leave. And leave now.

If you’re not in an evac zone, have a block home, and your windows are protected?

Well, I’ll see you on the other side. And — hopefully — we’ll be the ones helping others.

Stay strong, friends.

Hurricane Milton in Gulfport podcast

Gulfport Web Cameras Through Milton

Three of The Gabber Newspaper’s  five web cameras will not be functional throughout the storm.

The paper has two web cameras still up and running: Gulfport Marina web camera east and Gulfport Marina web camera west, at the marina. Those will stay live so long as the storm doesn’t knock them offline.

Please keep Gulfport and every city in Milton’s path in your hearts throughout the next two days.