On Thursday October 6^th, 2016 students, teachers, and parents received a phone call from the county that revealed school for all Pinellas County School districts and offices will be closed on Friday October, 7^th, 2016. School was canceled due to Hurricane Matthew, a category 5 hurricane, hitting the West Coast of Florida and the “20 to 30 percent chance of seeing tropical storm-force winds” in the Tampa Bay area. The hurricane didn’t have any major effects on the area- it was breezy with a slight chance of rain. However, students took advantage of their three day weekend. Sophomore Tate Anderson stated, “I got to sleep in later and watch Netflix all day”. Other students, such as sophomore Alexandria Salls, “took the day to get ahead on Carnegie for extra credit”. Despite the high wind speeds, many students, such as senior Brandon Croft went to the beach on their day off from school. Brandon Croft stated “I went to John’s Pass with some of my friends, even though the currents were strong because of the winds it was still fun”. Other students, such as sophomore Tina Nguyen, did not like the day off in fear that “the county will make us retake it”. Turns out, the day will not need to be made up, according to the Pinellas School Board.  Although many people in Pinellas didn’t do much to prepare this time, it is still important to know the evacuation routes a person would take if a hurricane was to hit their area. The evacuation routes can be found at http://www.floridadisaster.org/publicmapping/  and differ from place to place in order to keep students and all citizens safe.  All in all, whether prepared or not, teachers and students still got a free day off with little to no rain.