Eric’s hosting live chats every day at 2pm local time this week. There’s some good information in them (and after his early alarmism on Edouard, he’s doing a good job of playing the information straight), but the signal to noise ratio is getting out of whack as today’s winds down.

3:08 [Comment From Colleen]
Will the government be paying for our evacuation?

3:08 Eric Berger: Nope.

Thank you Eric. And I commend your restraint, since my response would have been “Don’t you mean will YOU be paying for my evacuation?” Just a reminder folks; the government doesn’t have its own money, it only has what it took from you and me.

In any case, I’ve been getting a bad feeling about Ike for several days now. May be nerves, but I’m going to lay in a few more batteries. And some gas.