A close call with Huricane Hannah

A close call..... I remember back about 12 years when the sceduled Bottle & Cork race was threated by a huricane. I'll never forget leaving Wilm. Friday morning in rain and wind only to arrive in Dewey in sunshine and warm tempertures. I left a voice message on my work number letting runners know to call back with updates about the event. Over 100 phone messages were left on my voice box. Dewey missed the brunt of that storm and the Cork race continued on schedule. This past weekend a similar storm call Hannah was approaching the beach just in time for our Cork ten miler / 5k. We had 435 pre registered runners and walkers as of the Thurs. prior to race date. I arrived in Dewey Thurs. evening and once again left a message on my work voice box letting folks know the weather conditions in Dewey. On Friday I met with the Rehoboth Police Dept and Dewey Police Dept.. Both gave us the ok to continue with the event but in case of a State of Emergency we would have to cancel. I called the Delaware State Police and they too said ok to proceed. I left a message on my voice box letting folks know that we were prepared to run ....but I could not make the call till race morning. I woke up at 4:30 am Saturday and walked outside. Hot and humid but NO rain. The heavy rain we got in Dewey Friday pm had moved to the north. The weather channel showed heavy rain to the south. It looked like we had a window of ok weather till about 10am. I had 79 voice messages from 9 pm Friday till 5:15am Sat. I left a new voice message telling folks that the weather was hot and humid with NO rain and the race was on as scheduled. From 5:15 am till 11 am Sat. I received 102 phone messages. These were runners looking for the latest updates. Why not just post on my web page? I did but i asked folks to call my voice box with hourly updates. It is just easier for me to make a phone call with updates on a day when i am dealing with these major issues and just can't stop what i am doing to power up my laptop. We lucked out with the weather.....450 total finishers......147 no shows. I had many runners come up to me thanking me for the hourly updates. Communication is the key.