We awoke to another beautiful sunny day. We were half expecting to see signs of Irene, but there were none yet. It was a little breezy, however. 

We prepared to pack a suitcase to move to our backup room at the Atlantis. As we packed, a squall moved in and we thought it was the first band from Irene, but it quickly passed and it turns out that it was just a standard tropical cloudburst.

We found from a checklist at the Atlantis how we should properly prepare our bag we were leaving at the other hotel: wrap it in plastic and put it in the tub. We would have liked to have known this from the hotel staff there, but despite having a nice hurricane status center in their lobby, they weren't keeping the staff up to date as the Atlantis was.

The check in line at the Atlantis was empty, the checkout line was long (20-30 people) as people were trying to check out to make the last flights out of the airport before it closed at 2pm. Curiously, people were still checking out after the 2pm deadline passed, and we're not exactly sure where they were planning to go.

We were told by the staff that we should be in our room at 3pm for the big announcement about if we were to sequester in the ballroom or not, but the time passed and no message came. Eventually it did and said that they'd let us know by intercom if it was a necessity. We also found out later that they would be providing dinner for all guests.

We took a stroll around the ground while the sun was still shining. The wind at their beach was a steady 20-30mph, but the skies were still party cloudy. The underground tunnels where the aquariums are viewed were stacked with deck chairs and such, and several outside doors had plastic and sandbags protecting them. A number of doors were also covered in plywood.


We returned to our room and watched out the window as the storm increased. 

A friend of ours mentioned on Facebook that Eric Johnson of KOMO TV channel 4 was looking for a Washingtonian in the Bahamas for some local coverage. I figured why not, so I sent Eric an e-mail and let him know I was available. Not long after I got an email back and they wanted to do a Skype interview. At the same time, e-mail from Ian Sterling of KOMO News Radio arrived asking for a phone interview. The "media whore" in me obliged.

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The Skype interview was quite fun, as was the radio interview. We heard from friends and family that it aired, and another friend heard the radio interview as well. 

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Cohen posed for this, it isn't the actual wind blowing him!

We went to dinner, a nice buffet spread (3 buffets are their various restaurants to handle the load). The line was long, as was expected, but the food was decent and the service great. The staff here is handling the situation with flying colors. 


After dinner it was back to the room to watch movies and watch the storm. I've been popping in and out on the balcony all night to watch the winds increase. 

15 second exposure from our balcony:
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