Loosening Up Bk. 05 Ch. 05-09

"No, but that's a great idea. I have to go by Lowes tomorrow, do you want me to get a couple and charge them to the Circle."

"Yes, please; and get gas cans, gas, oil, sharpeners, replacement chains, or anything else we need to keep them going. I would think two would be a good place to start."

Jack said, "I'll have them tomorrow afternoon. I'll put them in the storage area after I fire them up to be sure they work."

"Great."

Friday evening, Dave got home on the late side. He'd been rethinking the distribution of work crews across the state in the event of a major storm. He hadn't been but a lowly student when Hurricane Andrew hit Homestead, Florida, but he'd heard the lore and stories about the disaster that storm had created. That evening, Hurricane Marco was a category two storm and still east of the Caribbean islands.

He ran into Nancy as he came out on the patio to act as bartender. The afternoon thunderstorms were in progress but seemed to be either north or south of the Circle's compound by several miles. Nonetheless, the air was hot and humid, a point that seemed to encourage the near nudity of many Circle females. Nancy was wearing a thong and one of Dave's shirts with one button buttoned across her beach ball bulge from the baby. She'd reached in the waddling stage.

Erin waddled up to the bar as well, greeting Nancy with a polite hug bulge-to-bulge and air kiss. No one wanted to get too close to anybody else for fear they'd stick together in the muggy atmosphere. More than a few had gone swimming before approaching the bar.

Ty said, "I asked Bobbie and the dinner crew to set up dinner at the tables inside. The weather is too bloody hot and humid out here. The HVAC is wringing the air out inside as we speak."

Several acknowledged that was a great idea. One thing Dave noted, was when the women left the warm-moist environment such as existed at the bar that evening and then they went inside, their nipples rose to states of erectness and hardness difficult to describe without multiple superlatives but easy to appreciate. The phenomena seemed to be universal.

As Dave came in, Bobbie came and kissed him. She whispered, "We have stocks for over three weeks. I also made sure the core gas generator was tuned up, too. We're good to keep everything nice and fresh all that time, and we'll be able to have a few of our normal comforts for those three weeks."

"Thanks Honey. My mind is eased by that."

"You worried about Marco?"

"Yep. I just have a premonition. Nancy does, too. We'll know more over the weekend, and certainly by Monday morning."

"Let us all know. I'll keep things topped up."

Dave cursed his own forgetfulness for not remembering about the Circle's generators. There were eight of them, and they switched on automatically in the event of a power outage. Each one powered some specific appliances or outlets in various homes: emergency lighting and refrigerators were on those circuits. Townhouse 1 had the same arrangement with its own large generator, and Townhouse 2 would too once it was finished. Things were doubly redundant here and there, just in case of a failure of one of the units, and some of the circuits could cross feed if one of the generators failed.

Dave cornered Jack Anders again. Jack was not only a board member, he'd been the architect of the Circle homes and core, and had overseen the construction, just as he was doing for the Townhouse 2 project.

"Jack, make me feel good about the Circle's ability to withstand a major hurricane."

Jack laughed, "The Circle will likely be one of the safest spots to be in any storm of any intensity. We built to better than the Miami-Dade construction standards that the state adopted and frequently updated after Hurricane Andrew, and then the additional standards that allowed the damage in Charlotte Harbor. We're good into a low category five for sure. I think we're okay up to a two hundred mile an hour storm.

"Roofs will stay on past two-hundred miles an hour and windows will remain intact, even if hit repeatedly by major obstacles. They might crack, but they won't fail like a broken windowpane. Walls will remain and withstand wind that speed. Recognize that anything not tied down will fly away. At worst we might loose the covering over some of the carports or perhaps some of the solar panels on the core roof. Your company SunTech, that you're on the board of, they think they're good to a hundred-fifty."

"Should we board up the windows?

"I don't think it's necessary. Let me show you something." Jack fumbled with his cell phone and then passed it to Dave. He said, "Play the video."

Dave started the video on YouTube. It showed an industrial setting with a large pane of glass. A two-by-four stud was then shot end-on at the glass and bounced off; a caption indicated one hundred miles an hour impact speed. The video then continued and the stud was shot again, creating a small dimple or chip in the pane; the banner under the film indicated one hundred fifty miles an hour impact speed. A third shot at the pane with a new stud broke the stud and created a star-burst on the glass about two-feet across but no penetration occurred; the banner under the video indicated two hundred miles an hour. A fourth shot at the already broken glass penetrated about a foot but did not shatter the pane; that was at two hundred fifty miles an hour.

Jack said. "That's the glass we have in all the homes, the core buildings, the hangar, as well as the townhouses. It's costly but worth it; I use it on every job I do now. I wanted to add that the homes and core are high ground on this acreage. We'll be exposed to the wind, but not any local flooding. The hangar has high-speed ratings, too. There are special ways to brace the large doors and protect the planes better than we usually do by simply putting the door down. I'm sure you've seen pictures of small airports after a windstorm; we don't want that here. We'll also put all the golf carts in the hangar lest they blow away. They fit under the wings of Owen's jet.

"In very heavy rains the pool will flood but any overflow will drain out by way of the swales between various homes to the street, and then to our retention ponds, and if those fill up the water will enter the canals and compete with everything else trying to get to the Gulf. The point is that the water won't back up near the homes or townhouses or hangar."

"What about washouts?"

"Time will tell," Jack said. "It'll depend on the amount of water, wind direction, speed, and stuff we don't know about the layers of soil underneath this land. We do know that all of Florida is a big sandbar, so I expect a great deal of water will be absorbed by the land, and soggy land allows trees to topple and erosion to take place."

After dinner, Ty put on one of the dance mixes from the last big party, and encouraged people to 'get together'. Dave took turns dancing with Scarlett, Cricket, Wendy, and Robyn. The latter two wanted to get romantic, and in the semi-nude state they were in with erect nipples due to the air conditioning, it didn't take much to get Dave to forget about protecting the property and start to pay attention to the two of them.

He glanced around to check on his wives. Alice was in a huge lip lock with Ken Toomey as he fondled her bare breasts. Heather was making out with Paul and Emily, an interesting combination for sure. Further over, he could see Julie starting to roll around on one of the sofas with Owen; he knew from something she'd said earlier that they'd already made love that day, so this must be a continuation of their earlier session. Dave noted that Pam was with Doug and Pete; they were peeling away her bikini bottom so they had her completely naked on the sofa they were using. Pete obviously planned on supplementing his dinner meal since he was sitting on the floor in front of her. Scarlett and Cricket were dancing together and kissing as their breasts seductively rubbed together. They'd both told him that they were content exercising their sapphic lovemaking skills with each other on a frequent basis.

Everyone stayed inside to take advantage of the air conditioning. Dave's threesome with Wendy and Robyn was hot and romantic, but still left the three lovers sweaty and sticky. They actually basked in the body fluids and rubbed them into each other's bodies with some laughter. Dave suggested a swim, so Robyn and Wendy joined him for a dip in the pool; others followed suit as they finished round one.

The usual rotation of partners ended with Dave cuddling Patti and Bobbie on the same sofa he'd used with Robyn and Wendy. Patti was the perky airline flight attendance and fiancée of Ken, who he'd seen earlier with his wife. Patti pleaded with Dave to give her one of his huge pleasurable orgasms that leveled any woman.

Dave did as she wished, and then savored making love with her afterwards. Patti continued to have major aftershocks as they mated. She also got very vocal about her love for Dave and then the Circle and then Ken and then everybody in the world. She was over the moon feeling good about herself and everyone around her.

Dave noticed that Scarlett was relaxing near the gazebo with Dev, and that Cricket was with Jake on the chaise beside them. Everyone looked content and freshly fucked.

When Dave arrived at the patio on Saturday morning to cook brunch for the Circle and guests, he found Nancy already there with the Weather Channel playing around the clock on the large television set in the core. The various meteorologists were having their own little on-screen orgasms regarding the progress of Hurricane Marco in the Atlantic as it headed westward. They speculated about where it would go, how bad it would be, whether it would or wouldn't strengthen or lose its punch, and what would happen if it did. They also rehashed past hurricanes and the resulting impacts they'd had.

Nancy waddled up to him for a kiss and said, "We are going to get so fucking hammered, we just can't imagine. That fucking storm is going to go right over us. I bet the eye goes right over the Circle."

"What's your bet?" Dave teased.

"That if it doesn't, I'll fuck you to near death's doorway ... that is if I can ever get unpregnant! This is getting kind of nasty."

"I'm sorry for your aches. As for the bet, you'd do that anyway."

"Oh, why you're right." She laughed.

For its part, Hurricane Marco had ramped up to a category three storm, and it hadn't even neared the warmer waters in the Gulf of Mexico. As Dave looked at the TV screen he noted that the cone of uncertainty regarding the storms trajectory was as wide as ever. NOAA or whomever the channel used for their source information, basically couldn't tell what the storm would do so all of Florida and a large part of the Gulf was covered in the cone, but that was four or five days out at the storm's present speed before significant impact would be felt on the U.S.

Dave wondered how they managed to keep the high level of hype and ballyhoo about the hurricane that was moving methodically at about ten miles an hour on a slight northwesterly track. Fortunately for the Weather Channel the storm was about to make its first landfall on the island of St. Martin and that fact gave them fodder to chew on as they danced around the studio screaming about the potential disaster to islands, including Puerto Rico.

The breakfast went like it usually did. Jason and Robyn had stayed overnight, as did Jim and Lisa, Phil, Ron, Cindy, Sharon, Amanda, and Bjorn, Nathan, and Tan. Dave had started to just think of all of them as regular Circle members.

Over breakfast Dave asked Jason what he did to back-up all his legal papers and client files. Jason explained about how he had about a terabyte of cloud storage that held everything, and the servers were supposedly bomb proof and somewhere in Arkansas in a secret location. Dave's office building was older and certainly not to Miami-Dade standards; he thought of what he'd lose if his office were destroyed and made a mental note to move his computer and some other things to a safer location away from windows.

The day promised to be scorching hot again, but in the mid morning the temperatures were comfortable and invited being outside. As they sat Dave did a survey of what would have to happen to make the patio area secure from high winds.

Dave sat with Scarlett, Nancy, and Erin. Both pregnant women were obviously uncomfortable and kept squirming trying to find a comfortable position.

Dave asked Nancy, "What makes you think we're going to get hit hard?"

She nodded and laughed, "Gut feel." She pointed at her pregnant bulge. "The critter is getting active at hearing the news. I figure he's nervous so he just knows. He also has some inside track until he's born."

"Good and reliable news source," Dave teased. "I like that."

Nancy said, "While we were having breakfast they updated everything. The storm is now moving fifteen or sixteen miles an hour and intensifying. It found some warmer water. On a straight line path with a northerly jog over Cuba that'd put it here about Wednesday morning."

"Do you see us not doing something we should be doing?"

"Not right now, but tomorrow if nothing changes I'd get everybody to help clear the patio, take down stuff likely to blow down, and so on. I'd also either fly the planes out or have the hangar double-secured. As for the utility, you've got your plan; I'd make sure all the stuff up to Day Minus Four has been completed. I hope my replacement is doing her job."

Dave said, "Sheri Seaton is doing a great job. She volunteered to replace me at the County Emergency Center. I think highly enough of her to let her do that. I made sure she knew it was mostly a big game of telephone tag with calls from all the county services out prowling the streets and finding downed wires, poles, trees on the lines, and other damage that's in our purview. She still wanted to do it. She's single, so this'll let me be home with my intentional family. She told me she'd probably have to evacuate where she lived anyway, so she planned to load up her car and leave it someplace on high ground or on the second or third floor of some multi-story parking garage."

Sunday morning the news was not good regarding Hurricane Marco. The eye was over the Dominican Republic, the storm was six hundred miles across, and the projected track was right up the west coast of Florida after it plundered Cuba.

After breakfast, Dave mustered volunteers to help clear the patio. Everything that could be found that wasn't highly secure was carried inside and piled up, mostly in the core living room. Fortunately the chaises stacked, so most of the room still remained intact and useable. Dev took several other men up on the roof and they checked the attachment points for the solar panels, antennas, and a few other rooftop fixtures. The group went down and secured the hangar next, putting the place on lockdown until after Marco passed.

Dave went into work on Sunday afternoon to check on the deployment of trucks and crews. His decision to widely distribute the trucks to safe locations had been overridden in favor of a single disbursement point in the center of each county. Dave cringed at what might happen, but he wasn't the boss on that point at that stage.

Sheri Seaton, Nancy's replacement was working as though it was a regular business day. He suggested she might want to get some rest before the shit hit the fan, but she said she was having fun and feeling she was contributing to the preparedness of the utility for the coming disaster – not if it came, but when it came.

Dave got several cardboard boxes and put critical files and notebooks in them and put them in a storage room in the center of the building away from any of the windows. On Monday, he transferred a few critical files to his laptop, and then moved his desktop machine to the same storeroom as his files. He suggested that Sheri do the same thing and she did.

Tuesday morning as Dave went out to get into his car to go to work he looked up and saw the high thin clouds that announced the ultimate arrival of some part of Marco the following morning. A lot could happen in twenty-four hours. The morning report on the storm noted that the speed had increased to category four winds and it was moving at nearly twenty miles an hour. The trackers now agreed that the storm would enter the Gulf of Mexico and hook north with landfall between Naples and Tampa. Sarasota looked like ground zero.

The County Emergency Center got fully activated that day. Sheri went over and reported that there was little to do except test phone circuits and get to know the other people in the CEC. She said she was happy and even had a cot to use during her stay in the hardened county facility.

The noon update on the storm had narrowed down the expected track. The storm would turn into a category five storm – winds near one hundred sixty miles an hour, slow slightly in forward momentum, and turn into the Gulf of Mexico and the eye would ride right up parallel to the west coast of the state. From Key West to Marco Island to Naples, Fort Meyers, Charlotte Harbor, Sarasota, St. Pete, Tampa, Dustin and into Panama City, the state would be ravaged by the storm. This was a worst-case scenario playing out.

By five o'clock, Dave didn't know what else he could do to salvage the state. He made sure that the guys in PR had put out public bulletins to expect long and widespread power outages. He was talking to Sheri every couple of hours, mostly to keep her morale up. She was hyped about her ability to contribute and had met some great colleagues.

Key West was already reporting winds over forty-five and bands of heavy rain. Sarasota, where Dave sat, was cloudy with a few stray showers. The winds were still less than twenty miles per hour. Dave headed home. Leaving a very sparse office behind. When he checked the parking lot he realized that he was perhaps the last executive to leave the building. Everyone had been told not to come to work for the next two days or more. Many of the executives had duties to attend to on behalf of the utility, but with Sheri handling the CEC Dave was off the hook except to keep her spirits up.

The Circle dinner was inside and people were nervous. After the well-attended community meal people scurried back to their homes. Dave had been on cleanup, so came into the core living room when the kitchen had been restored to its pristine condition.

Waiting for him were eight women and two babies: Joan holding Lauren Jade, Christie, Bobbie, Maddy, Donna, Holly holding Zoe Faith, and the very pregnant Erin and Nancy. He came to a stop.

Joan stepped forward, "We are the Townhouse 1 residents, and none of us want to stay there tonight or into tomorrow. Can we stay with you?"

Dave led the contingent of refugees into his home. He got those unencumbered with child to carry in some of the cushions from the stacked patio chaises. In his home's living room, he pushed and piled furniture out of the way, and established beds for some of them. The women with children went to his guest room. The pregnant women went to Ken and Patti's bedroom where there was a king-size bed. Ken had texted that they were overnighting in Salt Lake City and not to worry about them. Dave had already heard that the nearby airports expected to close shortly.

Dave and Nancy stayed up late to watch the midnight update on the storm. It was on track as predicted. Sarasota and The Circle would be on the eastern edge of the eye, getting the full force of the winds as the storm motored north up the coast of Florida. Outside the winds were now up to around fifty miles an hour and seemed to be ramping up pretty quickly.