We've been doing some minor hurricane preparations today. Most likely we won't be affected except for the deadlocked traffic that comes with coastal evacuees coming into town. Forecasts range from us getting 0-19 inches of rain. Both Dolly and Edouard have passed us by this season with not even a droplet of rain. I'd love some rain from Ike, but I'm going to guess that it will turn and miss us.
During Rita, we had no hurricane action at all and in fact it was a record breaking, dry scorching weekend with temps over 110 degrees. However, we were affected with food shortages during Rita with the combination of people rushing to the store to stock up on food, coastal evacuees coming to stay, and many non-perishables having been bought and sent to Katrina survivors a few weeks prior to Rita. During that time a few years ago, we couldn't buy peanut butter for six weeks. This must have made an impression on both DH and I. Yesterday George and I did our weekly grocery shopping and I picked up a two-pack of peanut butter. DH stopped on the way home to pick up a few perishables that George and I had neglected to buy and he added to our supplies by purchasing two jars of peanut butter himself, not knowing that I'd already gotten some. So our house now contains five jars of peanut butter - the four recent purchases and the one we already had. Good thing we all like PB&J sandwiches!