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Awesome. We just got our roof on from Michael two weeks ago. Haven't even moved back home yet.

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Not too late to get any last minute supplies from Amazon. Just make sure the shipping arrives Friday.

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I type this as I still have work to be done from Hurricane Michael.  In addition to the regular preps that have been talked about (and will be talked about in the next few days), I would make these observations after having lived and worked in a Cat 5 direct hit:

Always assume the category can be 1 grade higher than what they are saying or predicting.  Michael was a great example of a hurricane that quickly worked up the scale, very quickly: Like no fucking around with stalling, wobbling or drastic course variations.  If Dorian stays in the Atlantic waters it can be bad.  If it crosses into the gulf it most likely stay bad and can get worse.

Some lesser thought about preps:

Write your insurance providers telephone claim number on your policy.   I am with a major, national insurance carrier.  I double packed my policy in two, one gallon zip lock bags and put it in my gun safe.  It would be safe there even if the house collapsed around or on top of it.  After we took the hit, and when I could finally get cell service to call my insurance company, I had policy in hand.  But no where on the policy was the number to call.  With initially no cell service, I couldn't search it on my phone either.  When we finally got to use a cell that had signal, I had to search for the number to call in my claim.  Google it now and write the claim telephone number on the front of your policy somewhere.

If you take a bad impact, be prepared for a really good chance that you will lose comms.  Conventional lines will take a huge hit.  Internet based phone lines will too.  Me and the wife use Verizon for our cells.  My work phone is Verizon.  Guess who lost all their towers and whose network was above ground?  Verizon.  It took a week to get even sketchy, weak and intermittent service back.   On the other hand, AT&T took much lees of a hit on their equipment and were useable, depending on location much quicker.   If you are tied to one provider or providers that share the same network, consider making an alternate plan now.  Best case scenario, if you have a good neighbor, check with them and see if they have a different network than you use and see if you can plan on using whoever's phones are working to make the calls to insurance companies and notification to immediate family of each others status.  Small side note here:  It took several days until I could call in my initial notice of claim.  In talking to the claims center, they were telling me to go to a motel and to go out to eat and keep the receipts as I would be reimbursed.  I explained there were no motels and places to eat.  They couldn't get it.  I asked if they had any idea of what had happened here and they said that we had been impacted by a hurricane, but they had not received that many calls on claims from our area.  The reason was obvious to me, but not to him.

Cash is king.  Seriously, have a reasonable amount of cash on hand.  Again, with a major hit, networks used by banks and businesses will be down.  Local servers could very well take a hit, they did for a lot of places here.  We had gas stations open 3 days after the storm.  Debit/Credit payments were pretty much non existent.  Cash was the only currency for most places.  We had a generator that used about 10 gallons of gas a day.  3 to 4 days of fuel will cost you around 80 to a 100 bucks if you have enough cans to go that long and if you can get it in the local area.  Most likely Gas Stations and Mom and Pop places will be the first to re open.  You will pay their prices for fuel and food items that you may need.   Have cash handy.  If possible, get receipts too for anything you buy post impact.  You can get reimbursed for a lot of things by your carrier.

Lighting:  Look at having some forms of rechargeable LED lights (rechargeable batteries are not what I am talking about).  A light source that can be recharged via a USB cord is handy as hell.  I have a small Quiglight that I use at work that is a lapel light.  It has some different settings and I used the hell out of it as a general area light when sitting around.  It stays on for about 10 minutes each time it is activated, but with an included diffuser, it made a great sitting around the table or deck light.  It could go a couple days between charges.  Something that can be recharged when you are driving your car is good.  Also look at any solar lights you have, you will be surprised at how many have on/off switches that can be turned off at dusk and turned on when you need light.  These make great lights to use to put places that you need light to walk through or sit around in.

Be prepared for the possibility of losing local TV and Radio stations.  We lost pretty much all of them before the eye hit.  It was a couple days before we got any radio stations back.  I could get a station from about 100 miles away, but they had very little information that helped, because in those first couple of days, with no local comms or radio/TV, so little info was getting out.  You may go a couple days without a lot of info.

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Just putting these up to see how close WINY's predictions are.

https://www.AR15.Com/media/mediaFiles/86739/windy1_JPG-1070536.JPG

https://www.AR15.Com/media/mediaFiles/86739/windy2_JPG-1070537.JPG

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The panic has begun.......
No gas cans or water in deland...ormond beach publix...mad house....gas lines getting longer.

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https://zello.com/

I have set up a Channel for the storm so we can keep in touch with each other just in case

down load the app on a smart phone

the channel name is FL Dorian no password yet but if turns into a shit house I will set one up

Those that know it helped out last year

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Checking in- another beautiful day on the water. We visited hopetown, Tahiti beach, and the water has been the calmest I've seen in 20yrs of coming here.

Dropped friends off at marsh harbor by boat before heading back. Tomorrow is supposed to be beautiful again.

We're in a rental, so not much we can do to prep. Stocked up on water and food, but not my house so most essentials are not here for us. No generator either. Luckily the ocean is full of food.

Looks like we'll be the first hit (northeast Bahamas) after this storm grows over the ocean, so we'll see what happens. We're right on the water and no hurricane shutters. Should make for an exciting Saturday night/Sunday morning.

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FYI to all:  MrHold and I agreed that it would be a good thing for the channel to be available at the beginning of every hour for Arfcommers to hop and  share spot reports on shortages/availability of gas, food, water, etc.  So join in at the top of every hour and share what you're seeing in your AO, if you please.

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2pm Monday is pretty much over my house.

At least it's only a cat 1 by then. Been through several of those. I think it was Ivan, Frances and Jean all went over my house.

https://i.imgur.com/r9LG6ui.png

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well and here I am in Phoenix watching this thing

this will be the 1st Hurricane since moving to Daytona Beach in 2016 that I am not in Town for



good luck everybody

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UP AND RUNNING, Join, Help out other members that may be in need, we are all brothers here in a time of need

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Southern Jax here. Gas stations seems a bit busy, certain Publix's are running out of water.

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WHERE?

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Ben you do have that amphibious tank up and running?

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I heard New Smyrna home depot is out of gas cans earlier today.
I heard Edgewater publix was out of water earlier today.
I just heard Kenny's gas station in Edgewater is shutting down the gas pumps at 1900 tonight and will be open tomorrow morning full of gas.
All gas stations lines are long in edgewater except for the one at 442 and I-95. He was $2.89 gal when I filled all my cans, the extra $.30 was worth not dealing with bullshit.

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The model that Windy was showing earlier today up until the recent update didn't seem very plausible to me.  It was showing the storm hit FL, stall over FL, go out over the gulf, cut back over the south GA and lowcountry SC for a day or so and then go back out over the Atlantic and gain major strength off of Cape Hatteras.

This latest update seems much more plausible.