A Note About Hurricane Irma and The Mane Land

Update 9/11/17, 4 p.m.: We are happy to report we’ve heard from all staff writers and editors and two of our photography contributors. Many are without power and some without internet. We’ll continue to try to maintain our usual coverage but we may not be able to provide as much content as usual due to these outages. We hope to resume normal operation as soon as possible.

Hello, Mane Landers! Last October I wrote this article about the impending possibility of Hurricane Matthew affecting The Mane Land staff and our coverage of Orlando City’s teams. I have updated that piece (below) and hope that everyone remains safe as Hurricane Irma passes through the areas in which many of you (and us) live.

With a powerful storm bearing down on the Sunshine State, it’s a lucky thing that OCB was scheduled to play on Thursday and that the Pride were able to move up their match to stay out of harm’s way. Thankfully, the Lions are on the road, so hopefully our cable/satellite/electricity/internet will stay on long enough for us to see the game. It’s not the most important thing right now, but it could at least distract us for a bit.

The weather is undefeated and should never be challenged.

As Hurricane Irma makes its way north and threatens our state, I first want to wish all of you the best of luck. Mother Nature is not a force to be trifled with, so we hope that everyone takes the mindset to err on the side of caution rather than take unnecessary risks. The weather is undefeated and should never be challenged.

I also wanted to drop a note regarding The Mane Land, not only for those who read us throughout the Central Florida area, but also beyond. Many of our writers will be within reach of the storm. Most of us are concentrated inland, although we’re smack dab in the middle of several models tracking the storm, and we could still find ourselves without power, internet, and/or cell service soon. Some of our staff members live in the more vulnerable areas along the Atlantic coast where flooding could be severe.

When The Weather Channel sends people to your area to broadcast about the storm, you definitely take notice.

The safety of the TML staff is obviously of paramount importance to me. I urge all of our staff to take appropriate precautions, including – should they deem it necessary – evacuation. I urge everyone to be wherever they’re going to be by 5 p.m. Saturday and then to stay put. As a website, we will strive to continue to function as normally as possible over the coming days.

I will personally do everything in my power (provided I have power and either the internet or cell service, or both) to maintain the site’s schedule of features with whatever breaking news we can cover over the span of the storm’s passing and beyond. However, please be aware that the site could potentially go without updates for an indeterminate period if the storm is particularly destructive and leaves us without power/internet, or with more immediate problems that must be overcome before we can even think about sitting down to write a blog post. This may be unavoidable, but we will do everything we can to avoid it.

I will try to provide updates from The Mane Land Twitter account (@TheManeLand) periodically to let people know that we’re OK as I get reports from our staff, and what the status of stories will be over the days (and weeks, if need be) to come. We hope the storm isn’t too disruptive to our daily functions but…this is a blog and it is infinitely less important than real life. I guess what I’m trying to say is that we’ll do what we have to do and get back to normal as quickly as we can.

Hopefully I’ll be able to look back on this post in a few days and laugh about having written it.

But this is a two-way community, so enough about us. Where are you located in relation to the storm’s path? What are you doing to prepare for the hurricane? Are you getting out of harm’s way, or are you staying put? How are you planning to pass the time? Let us know what you’re up to in the comments section below and keep us updated on how the weather is affecting your area.

Stay safe, Lion Nation.