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Though the track had shifted westward, Brevard County still remained solidly within the eastern edges of Tropical Storm Ian's forecast cone Sunday.

And before Ian potentially intensifies into a major hurricane over the warm Gulf of Mexico, Melbourne resident Pat Alderman took action to ward off potential flooding.

Alderman bought ten 50-pound bags of sand, along with 50 empty sandbags, at Lowe's in West Melbourne to fortify her back patio door against floodwaters. She has a backyard pond, and her soils are saturated with recent rainfall. 

"We have roll-down shutters already, so we don't have to board up. We just roll. We have a generator," Alderman said, standing alongside her shopping cart Sunday morning inside Lowe's.

"This is from decades of living in Florida. If you've lived here for a while, you need to have all these things. Transplants don't understand this," she said.

While Alderman shopped, National Hurricane Center forecasters were predicting Ian would strengthen into a hurricane Monday morning, rapidly grow into a major hurricane Tuesday morning, and make landfall Friday morning by plowing into Florida's Big Bend region.

A caveat: Uncertainty in the long-term track and intensity forecast of Ian is higher than usual, the National Weather Service station in Melbourne announced Sunday morning.

“A slight shift to the east in the track would increase impacts. A slight westward shift would decrease impacts," Brendan Schaper, a meteorologist at the NWS Melbourne station, said of Ian's potential damages to the Space Coast.

"But it's always best to be prepared for the worst and hope for the best," he said.

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Schaper recommends that Brevard County residents complete hurricane preparations soon.

“Right now, the earliest reasonable arrival time for tropical storm-force winds is late Tuesday night into Wednesday morning,"  Schaper said.

"The most likely arrival time of tropical storm-force winds is during the day on Wednesday and into Wednesday night," he said.

“A cone is sort of a guide, but conditions can be hazardous outside of that. It doesn't mean that you have to be right in the middle, or even on the edge, of that cone — you can be just outside and still feel the impact," he said.

"Of course, the forecast can change as well. So that that cone of uncertainty can change," he said.

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Brevard County Emergency Management officials have shared a list of hurricane-kit items in advance of Ian's approach:

Bracing for possible localized flooding, Brevard County Public Works and the Brevard County Sheriff's Office are offering up to 10 free sandbags per vehicle through at least Monday from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. at four distribution sites:

Inside Lowe's in West Melbourne, pallets loaded with hurricane-list items greet customers just inside the front doors. Store Manager Thomas Wiese said more shoppers prepped for Ian on Saturday than on Sunday — the cone's center shifted westward from focusing on Tampa-Southwest Florida to the Tallahassee area.

"Sales trends (Saturday): A lot of customers coming in for water, propane, generators, batteries, flashlights, sandbags," Wiese said. 

The Lowe's hurricane pallets offered 3-gallon jugs of water, eight-packs of Gatorade, outdoor mold and mildew cleaners, 5-gallon gasoline cans, batteries, weather radios and generators manufactured by Craftsman, Firman and Briggs & Stratton.

"A lot of customers are still preparing. With the uncertainty of the storm tracks and how much it's changed over the past two days, customers are still being prepared," Wiese said. 

Rick Neale is the South Brevard Watchdog Reporter at FLORIDA TODAY (for more of his stories, click here.) Contact Neale at 321-242-3638 or rneale@floridatoday.com. Twitter: @RickNeale1

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