I talked to Tom Reed about an hour ago. Yes, he's fine. The only effects he can see so far of Charley's visit were some shingles ripped off the roof and no power. I caught him napping at the TV station he works at in Orlando...he took refuge there and has been hanging out there since. Considering that he usually spends his weekends there things are actually fairly normal for him.

It's funny...when you come from a region that is known for some kind of recurrent disaster and someone from somewhere else hears about something happening out your way, you get the kind of "Oh my god are you OK?" calls that I made to Tom. In fact, I seem to remember one frantic call after he found out there was a quake nearby. "It was only a 3.1, I barely felt it" takes a while for someone from somewhere else to wrap their brain around. For me, a hurricane is a non-reality in the same way an earthquake is for someone from somewhere other than the Pacific Coast. Theoretically we could get affected by the tail-end of a hurricane coming up from Mexico, but I can't remember that happening to us in my 40 years of life.

Anyway, there were a bunch of people far more affected by Charley. I suppose they deserve our prayers, our good thoughts or whatever. It's just good to know that my personal connection to that region is fine and by and large unscathed. I don't envy him the task of going through his fridge to throw out spoiled food, but I've been there before, a little more than 10 and a half years ago.

Oh yeah, one last thing...the Orlando Sentinel just archived their storm blog. I suspect that the next time there's a big quake, our local papers will do the same. It's an interesting way to cover an ongoing "situation" like that.