We don't want to sound like we're crying wolf every time a hurricane comes out of the Caribbean and has a potential to cause issues in our area, but we still want to inform people of the possibility and tell them that they need to stay on top of the storm by monitoring the National Weather Service and the local television and radio stations.
By time our next newspaper comes out next week, Hurricane Dorian will have likely made landfall and it will be too late for us to issue any warnings in our print edition.
As in the past, we monitored the National Weather Service most of the day Wednesday. As in the past, we reached out to Escambia County (Ala.) Emergency Management Director David Adams to get his input. We knew what Adams would say Wednesday, but we wanted to hear it from him. He said what we expected – it's too early to tell what this storm will do, but it's a storm we all need to keep our eyes on.
Most projections have the hurricane skirting the east coast of Florida and heading toward Georgia and the Carolinas. But several models have the hurricane crossing the Florida peninsula and entering the Gulf of Mexico. If that happens, we better keep a watchful eye on the news.
Everybody, from the National Weather Service to Adams says if it reaches the warm waters of the gulf the hurricane will intensify. What direction the hurricane takes is anybody's guess at this point in time.
We enter the Labor Day weekend with a Saturday full of college football. Just keep an eye on the storm.
