9 replies to this topic

[Dave Crevie]

To all you guys who are living through the havoc left by the recent storms, my heart is with you.

 

One big one is bad enough, two is just unthinkable.

 

I hope you can come out the other side as good as you went in.

[Jay Guard]

It was a wild ride all last night (wind/rain at 60 mph+) here about 45 miles north of Orlando but we fared pretty well.

 

A ton of branches and leaves down all over but zero damage. We lost power at 11:00 PM last night and are still without electricity today.

 

I do have a large generator that I'm using on and off to keep the fridge and freezer cold, and the water pressure up, but mostly we are making do with battery-powered lights at night and using my phone (on LTE) as a hot spot.

 

Hey, camping out in your own home is sort of fun.

[Pablo]

 

[Dave Crevie]

Jay; What a cool attitude! I admire that. Around here, if any of my neighbors misses a landscaping day, you would think the apocalips is neigh. Earlier this year we had a 70 MPH gust at O'Hare. Took a few trees down by me, but not much of a fuss otherwise. So we got a taste of what a tropical storm would bring. But nothing like 102 MPH.

[SlowBeas]

I hope the outage ends quickly, Jay. I know it's a real pain when it drags out. I have nothing but respect for the crews that put in the hours to restore power. I saw several caravans of bucket trucks going both east and west on I-20 lately.

[Bridgehampton66]

I've been wondering how our Florida raceways have all fared.  Any solid info on this?

[Hot Slots]

All survived

[Dave Crevie]

Good news.

[Aeropro]

Sorry, guys, but you asked...

We were evacuating from Milton, driving north to Gainesville to stay with friends, when an idiot made a u-turn at an intersection and totaled my car. I'm ok, but the wife is pretty banged up. No hospitalization yet, but waiting for results from the x-rays. 

Meanwhile, our house, which was undamaged by the storm, is now inaccessible due to rising flood waters. We will be camped out at a hotel until the flooding subsides, which will take weeks. Between that and the rental car (the insurance only pays $20 a day) this will be the most expensive staycation ever.

Other than that, no problem....thanks for asking.

[Wizard Of Iz]

I'm Blessed to have two homes in Florida.  One on each coast so we're constantly trying to - as in the title of a Jimmy Buffett song - "Trying To Reason With Hurricane Season."

 

The most important thing is that we safely weathered both storms.  "Stuff" can be replaced.  My heart goes out to families that lost loved ones and/or suffered catastrophic property losses.

 

Our full-time home is in Jacksonville on the East Coast.  It's well inland and on the high end of the street.  We were very fortunate and didn't lose power during either hurricane.  Only had "first-world" problems there .... leaves and debris in the pool and twigs/branches in the yard.  Nothing a little over 5 hours of pool cleaning and a couple of hours of raking didn't cure.

 

Our other house is in Treasure Island on the Gulf coast and is located on Boca Ciega Bay.  It was definitely in harms way.  The storm surge from Helene put 32" of sea water in the house.  Estimates are that 95% of the homes and businesses experienced flooding to some degree.  It's the first time in the house's 65 year history that water has gotten in the house.  So ... like all of my neighbors in TI ... we spent a few days hauling everything to the curb. The house is back down to a bare terrazzo floor and empty rooms and ready to start over.  We were able to salvage my great-grandparent's rocking chair and a few family items that were in upper drawers or cabinets.  Now I'm just waiting on my contractor to get his crew in there to rip out the kitchen cabinets and bathroom vanities and cut the plaster walls at about 48" in every room.  They're incredibly busy and many have issues with their own homes.  I don't live there full-time (yet) so I'm willing to wait while they get full-time residents squared away.   The ones that stayed during the storm found themselves wading through waste deep waters in the middle of the night as they made their way down the street to one of the more recently built houses that has an elevated lot.

 

Again ... it's only "stuff."