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Highlands Today

Keeping An Eye On Ike

Kathy Waters/Highlands Today

Du'Wayne Kelly with DNA Hurricane Protection, Inc. cleans up after adjusting a shutter on a home Thursday in Lake Placid.

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By JOE SEELIG

Highlands Today

Published: September 5, 2008

SEBRING - Public safety officials at the Emergency Operations Center were expecting Tropical Storm Hanna to turn north Thursday, steering clear of Florida, but they're keeping an eye on Hurricane Ike, already a Category 4 storm with sustained winds at 140 mph.

Forecasters say Ike is still more than five days away, give or take a little.

"We're monitoring Ike right now," said Ben Henley, emergency management coordinator for Highlands County. "It's definitely got our attention."

Staff at the Emergency Operations Center is continuing its conference calls with the National Weather Service and expects to know more about which way the storm is going by Sunday, he said.

Everything is hypothetical right now, said Henley.

"If it doesn't speed up or it doesn't slow down, or if it doesn't turn, we're in the cone of uncertainty right now, so it's got our attention," he said. "We'll start looking at what we'll do Monday, on Sunday."

Meanwhile, some Highlands County shutter companies have seen increases in business helping residents protect their homes, just in case.

Alan Gonzales, owner of Al's Hurricane Shutters, located in Sebring, was in Golf Hammock on Thursday looking in on his customer, Eleanor Murray, making sure all of her accordion shutters were in working order.

Murray, who is a widow and uses a walker, called Al's because she was not physically able to get out there herself. Gonzales said if a storm comes, he'd gladly help her close the shutters if needed.

She has two daughters within driving distance and two sons.

Murray said when she became a widow she needed to take steps to protect herself and her property so she took care of business.

"When my husband passed away I decided to do things to take care of me," she said. "So I put in a new garage door with braces and shutters all around."

She's well supplied.

Murray's been making ice cubes ahead of time as well as making ice blocks by filling old milk containers and plastic containers with filtered water so if the power goes out her supplies will stay cold in her freezer.

Gonzales keeps busy.

"It's been slow until recently," said Gonzales Thursday. "But, my phone has gotten a lot busier. I've got two estimates to do tomorrow."

Different types of shutters have different prices and it's figured by the square footage of the windows or doors needed to be covered. Even the storm panels have to be measured.

Accordion shutters have to be custom made and can take several weeks for delivery, so people who are thinking of ordering them for Ike may be out of luck.

"They have to order them in advance," he said. "It's hard to keep every size panel in stock."

Du'Wayne Kelly and his wife Amber Kelly own DNA Hurricane Protection Inc., located in Sebring.

Du'Wayne Kelly said Thursday his business has really picked up over the last month, but over all it is still about 20 percent down from last year.

"I'm not gonna complain because we're a lot better off than some people in the construction business right now," he said. "We're not rock and rolling, but we're better off than some people here."

People are hedging their bets on if a major storm will hit this year.

"I think part of it is the economy," he said. "The customers are deciding if this is something they need to spend money on. Aluminum costs are going up 10 to 20 percent, but even though our costs are up, we really haven't raised our prices."

That would be bad for their business, he said.

"So we're taking a hit on it," he said.

He was glad to see people heeded the warnings before Fay.

Depending on Ike's forward speed and direction, DNA might still be able to get some homes protected with panels depending how soon he got the order.

"There's a chance I could still get them in before Ike gets here," he said.

http://tropics.hamweather.com/2008/atlantic/ike/tr...

Joe Seelig can be reached at (863) 386-5834 or jseelig@highlandstoday.com .

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