Ernesto | Brent Ozar PLF | Brent Ozar PLF

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Ernesto checking in this afternoon

Written on August 29, 2006 by Brent Ozar in Miami Beach

It looks like Tropical Storm Ernesto is still bearing down directly on Miami. The chart hasn’t changed much from yesterday, other than the strength dying down:

I needed gas yesterday – more of a coincidence than hurricane preparation – and got a disturbing surprise. Everybody’s making a run on gas, since they remember the stations running out last year. I got in a 30-car line for gas yesterday on the way home from work at the station with the shortest line, and they were out of everything but premium. On the way in to work this morning, the few stations I passed were out of gas. Ouch. Both of our cars are full now, so we shouldn’t have any problems.

Erika went grocery shopping yesterday, but we ran out of paper towels last night so I headed over to Publix for more. (Paper towels are very, very important in our house. Probably more so than water.) Both of the Publix stores on South Beach were a total zoo, but I noticed as I was going through the checkout line that most of the other people weren’t buying water either. Everybody was doing their normal grocery shop, just right before the storm. Hamburger, feta cheese, fresh bread, etc – not exactly the kinds of things you’d expect people to be buying with an approaching storm.

There’s a voluntary evacuation on Miami Beach, but we’ll ride it out since our condo building is so sturdy. We’ll park the cars in the multi-story parking garage this afternoon – there’s no charge during tropical storms – and veg out with little Ernie. Ernie the dog, not Ernesto the storm. Well, that too, but I wouldn’t give nicknames to storms.

I’m hoping I can leave work around lunchtime today. I’d rather get settled in before the rains hit.

Brent Ozar

Brent specializes in performance tuning for SQL Server, VMware, and storage. He's one of the very few Microsoft Certified Masters of SQL Server, a published author, and a Microsoft MVP. He likes travel, Jeeps, Apple gear, jokes, and writing about himself in the third person. Read more and contact Brent.

Hurricane watch posted

Written on August 28, 2006 by Brent Ozar in Miami Beach

Here we go again. Quick geography lesson: in the map below, I live at “2 AM Wed”:

Hurricane Ernesto's projected path

This will be the fourth hurricane we’ve been through since we moved down to Miami a year ago – Katrina, Rita and Wilma were the first three last year. Katrina and Rita were both dinky Category 1′s when they blew through Miami. Wilma was a rough Category 3, and most of the area lost power for a couple of weeks, but in Miami Beach we had it easy. I read through my Hurricane Wilma blog entries and had a few chuckles.

My preparations this year mainly consisted of prepping my Macbook Pro to use my Cingular 8125 PocketPC phone as a modem. If my Atlantic Broadband cable modem goes out, I’ll still be able to use the handheld to surf and whatnot. I still have to get my VPN working on the Mac, though.

Miami Beach definitely takes a more laid-back attitude about hurricane preparations because the buildings are so damned solid. Our condo is solid concrete. I can’t hang stuff on the interior walls without a major trip to the toolbox because even the interior walls are concrete. The windows are the weakest link, of course – it’s an old building with louvered windows for better ventilation. Better ventilation means leaky.

This will be my first hurricane as the overall company DBA (instead of just the data warehouse DBA) and today’s agenda will be chock full o’ role swap talk. Well, that and we’ve got a new Windows engineer starting, so it’ll be good for him to see our preparations.