Well, Charley has arrived in Central Florida. As I am writing this close to 6:30 PM, the rain is falling stedily in north Lakeland with a light wind. The main body of the storm is approaching southern Polk County after inflicting considerable damage in Desoto County to our south. From what I am seeing, it looks like the eye will cross Polk near Bartow, slightly east of Winter Haven, then move north-northeast and exit near Haines City/Davenport. While Lakeland will be on the west (weaker) side of the hurricane, we'll still experience a bit of wind and rain for the next few hours, so it ain't a situation to play around with.

I'm keeping up with what's going on by monitoring to the amateur radio communications between the Polk Emergency Management office, the Red Cross in Winter Haven, and the various shelter locations countywide. They do a fabulous job in handling evacuees who don't have anywhere else to go in a situation such as this. As of a couple of hours ago they had registered over 2,000 people at nine shelters; most were at or nearing capacity and as a result more have since been opened.

Gotta get some food ready in case the power goes down...