Located here in Las Galeras out at the tip of the Samana Peninsula puts us in a very vunerable position for this one. Having been through a number of hurricanes in Florida and tracking them for as long as I can remember, I've got the gardeners coming tommorrow to trim all the palms WAY back, cut all the cocos and also seriously trim our big rubber tree behind the restaurant. This one's on it's way, folks.
In '96 Nicole and I had already scheduled a flight out the day hurricane Hortense hit (September 10) and tore up Las Galeras including the roof on our restaurant and some of the cabanas. Even as some early squalls passed the day before, the locals refused to believe a hurricane was coming. "Sixty-five years they said, it's been sixty-five years since the last one. It won't come here." We were back from Florida in 3 weeks (instead of our planned three months stay) with a pocket full of money to rebuild.
Then in September '98 hurricane Georges passed on the southside of the island and despite what some may say about leaves not being rustled on the north coast, here in Las Galeras (and Samana) we had hurricane force winds for several hours with two 5 minute squalls that the wind exceeded 125mph (by my estimate). I was in our open-air restaurant (hiding behind the concrete bar) during the second squall and watched parts of the roof fly off. We were lucky. We only lost about $500usd worth of the big, asbestos roof shingles on the restaurant roof. Suprisingly the roof structure held. I expected it to fly away, too.
What I was really worried about during Georges was my 40' sportfisherman that was hauled out of the water at that time in the little boatyard in Samana. We lashed it down to the rail car beneath it and I drilled 1" holes in the bottom to allow it to fill up with water and not try to float off the car should the water rise that far. The guys at the yard were really nice including trimming the nearby big trees and cutting down a huge Royal palm growing right by the haulout rail. I even plywooded up all the salon windows and big cockpit doors expecting the worst. Other than some leaves in the cockpit, the boat came through without a scratch.
So tommorrow we trim trees and I'll buy a few sheets of plywood and cover the aluminum French windows in the new apartments and like Tom (XR), hope like hell all my preparations will have been in vain (but I don't think so).