St. John: Hurricane update 10:00 a.m. EDT

Earl slowed its forward motion overnight, delaying the arrival of its fury about 12 hours.  Now the National Hurricane Center says the center of the storm will pass northeast of St. John at about 6 p.m.

CaribStorm.com's "How Close" tool says the outer edge will be 70 miles away.  The storm's force is diminished from what it could have been. Earl is expected to be a Category 2 (96-110 mph) when it blows by.

Power's off in Cruz Bay.  The St. John Spicecam quit transmitting at about 7 a.m.  This is the last picture.  Notice it's blurry. The camera was getting blown around.  A surprising number of sailboats are still moored in the harbor.  How many will be damaged and end up in the Beach Bar, literally? (http://www.stjohnspice.com/stjohnspicecam.htm)

Fish Bay's Karen Radtke Facebooks: "What is it that dog's sense? Cagney is super hyper this morning." Karen's in training for the Susan G Komen 3Day for the Cure walk in Tampa Oct 29-31st.

Walter Hinds apparently hosted an all night hurricane preparedness party at his restaurant in Cruz Bay.  Martinis and more.  He posted, "It's 6:10 am and I am sitting on the deck of Hinds with some friends and I am holding a beverage (a martini). OK, now it is 7am & there is an hurricane in effect and the school bell across the street just rang…..PRICELESS."

CaribStorm's Dave posted this at dawn. "I have to go to work as one of our clients (a business owner) decided he wanted his hurricane shutters this morning. Nothing like waiting till the last minute and putting others at risk."