I wandered around the hotel doing some work, chatting to people, and wandering the grounds seeing the preparations for the storm. Orange sandbags were appearing at many entrances. On the smaller doors they were piled either side about five high. For the large doors they were stacked high on palettes. Next to the main lobby a couple of containers had appeared, and several large generators had been placed around the compound. Staff were removing the awnings round the pool, stacking away chairs and umbrellas, boarding up the kiosks for towels and putting huge plywood boards across the pool bar; the contents already having been removed. A guy with a long pole was going round harvesting the coconuts from the palm trees. I’d never thought of that as a hurricane hazard but better to do it before the storm than to have these huge bombs let loose during the wind. The sun loungers were being stacked on to a trailer and tractored off. The beach was almost deserted of people. I walked along the sand then back along the main road and saw similar activities going on not only at the other resorts, but also at all the strip malls and business and the few condominiums in the area.
When I returned to the hotel lobby a most curious operation was going on. The hotel had a huge car park underground, and many of the vehicles were being taken out of here and left in a car lot. This might have seemed counterintuitive but I think they were more concerned for the flooding than the damage by wind and projectiles.
When I Went To 