Couldn't sleep for more than a couple of hours at a time. Guess it comes from my previous life as a radio personality when working during a weather event like this really got the juices flowing.

The gusts at Lakeland Linder Regional Airport have been up to approximately 40 MPH, but it's mostly quiet with no rain right now. The power is still own...for now. I live in an apartment complex where the lines are underground, so unless one of the overhead lines outside that feed the complex come down we should be OK. We had no problems during Charley...but this ain't Charley.

A number of people from Polk County and elsewhere across Florida ain't taking chances when gettin' the heck out of Dodge. My old hometown newspaper, the Hattiesburg (MS) American, has a feature of one couple from Haines City who picked the Hub City as their place of shelter. Others fled as far north as Jackson, and sadly one person from Villas On The Green (near Jupiter) died after suffering a heart attack while driving along I-10 in Hancock County along the Mississippi Gulf Coast while getting away, according to the Jackson Clarion Ledger .

Here's a couple of other bloggers keeping up with this storm:

debwire: From St. Petersburg. In addition to her own posts, she has a good list of other bloggers thanks to Pensacola area blogger PaperFrog.com.

Orlando.metblogs.com: Several bloggers from around the Orlando area have been posting their experiences on this site. This is actually one of the better sites during this storm, because you have one site with several different perspectives/locations throughout the area.

Steve Koppelman's Hatless: He's in the Fort Lauderdale area. During the storm he's been blogging from his parent's home...which has storm shutters. He has an interesting observation on them, as well as some good pre-storm pictures

The only real concern I have is that I live in a second floor apartment, which is actually pretty good. Except that just outside my balcony is a HUGE oak tree. If one of those really BIG winds decided to pound our part of Lakeland, that tree leans slightly toward the building, guess where it's gonna go??? Can you say, new apartment???