I have lived in Florida my entire life, and hurricanes just come with the territory. Not unlike blizzards in the north, or earthquakes in California. I have so many memories of 'Hurricane Days' when school would be canceled and we would drive our mom crazy from being stuck inside.
Blake and I got so many texts and calls this week from family and friends who live out of state wondering what we were going to do. Hurricane Harvey has been fresh on everyone's minds too. The thought struck me that most people have no idea what a hurricane is like or what we do to prepare. I decided to keep a little diary of what Irma was like for us!
Preparation
The eye and the upper right quadrant are the most dangerous parts of the storm. So where that section lands is going to be devastated. The rest of the hurricane is mostly just tons of rain and wind. We live in north Florida, and not all that close to either the Gulf or the Atlantic. So typically we are not under mandatory evacuations or even experience the worst of the storms. (Although many were because they lived in low areas or mobile homes.) It's not an afternoon rain shower, but unless it's over a Category 2, it's really just a (very) bad storm. We know we will likely lose power and probably have downed limbs.
That being said, we are not dumb and we are happy to leave if we need to! We are not attached to our home and possessions that much to risk being hurt. The models for Irma have changed every day so we were closely monitoring them. On Saturday the models changed again and it began to look like it was heading exactly toward us. And they changed again on Sunday more westward. At that point by the time it had gone up the entire state it would hopefully be a category 1 or 2. That still means 75-90 mph winds.
We decided to stay and ride it out. I'd say 98% of our friends and family decided to do the same thing, and that was encouraging to us. If we had to leave, we would, but it would not be fun. The roads were slammed and there wasn't any gas at any station close to us.
Everyone should have a 'go-bag' with the essentials. Ours was ready to go but we still needed to accrue water and food. Food was easy to obtain on Tuesday. I spent the most money I ever have at Publix! It doesn't need to be fancy freeze dried food or anything like that. I could live off peanut butter sandwiches anyway. The problem was navigating the clogged aisles while trying to think about an entire week's worth of groceries plus hurricane food. I did not want to go back there if I could help it!
Water is a different story. I get so frustrated about this! The bottled water flew off the shelves an entire week before the storm. Finally a few days later they started getting emergency shipments, but they were depleted really fast. Because this always happens we bought 3 five gallon igloo coolers (the orange ones you see on the sidelines) to fill up with our tap water. Most people in our area have wells, and if the electricity goes out they can't pump it. We have city water and don't have that problem. But, if the river overflows into the aquifer our water can be tainted. Fine to flush the toilet, but not good to drink. I also threw a few of our reusable water bottles into the freezer to be used as ice packs if the power goes out.
Then we got our house ready. We put away anything and everything that could get blown around. Anything can become a projectile if the wind is bad enough. Thankfully we have a decent sized shed and our chairs and string lights easily tucked away in there. We charged our flashlight batteries too and got our important paperwork together in a place that could easily be grabbed if we needed to go.
We are getting ready to do some major landscaping this fall so just ignore all of that.
Saturday
Saturday was just a big waiting game for us. The bottom half of the state was getting hammered by the storm, and we were only just beginning to experience the outer bands. Boredom set in pretty quick between the monotony of checking the weather and trying to distract ourselves. We still had power, so we were trying to eat up the food in the fridge and watch tv while we had it. Just knowing we would be stuck inside all day the next day was so irritating. (Definitely not a person who sits still!)
Blake worked on a lego set, because he is still a kid at heart. I took a nap because I didn't sleep so well the night before with all the build up of anxiety. Then we played video games! He somehow set up a mini game system that has all the N64 games that we all grew up with. Many, many games of Mario Kart were played!
The hardest part was getting the dogs to go outside! They don't like to go when it's raining, so I tried to get them out when we had 15 minutes of a break.
We had power until we went to sleep at midnight. I woke up in the night and knew it had gone off. The wind was howling so I didn't sleep very soundly. The worst of it hit us around 6 to 7 am on Monday.
Monday
Irma was a category 1 storm when it hit us. The rain was pretty steady and the wind was bad, with big gusts every few minutes. We watched the storm for a few minutes and made sure we didn't have any leaks. After that we just went back to sleep! By lunch time it was over. We popped outside to check on everything and we just had a few limbs down. It was still misty outside so we waited a little while before adventuring out into the neighborhood.
Here is a video I took at about 7 am. Watch all the trees on the street, not just the palm:
Our neighborhood had tons of whole trees down. One house had just put on a new roof and it was damaged! Blake and I went on a walk because we were going stir crazy and we were able to see what was going on around town. No one had power and even the traffic lights were out.
We also didn't have cell phone data. We could call or text but that was it. That made it hard to connect with everyone. It finally kicked back on around 5 on Monday.
We grilled up to frozen pizzas that we had in the freezer. It was SO good. I may just have to do that all the time now. The air was so cool, so we really enjoyed sitting outside. I actually needed to get my jacket!
Tuesday
Now power again on Tuesday. We were determined to be productive! There are only so many board games you can stand after awhile. Our fridge was leaking water, so we knew it was time to clean it out. I had been wanting to deep clean it anyway so no biggie. Unfortunately I used all of my clean kitchen towels to do it and can't wash any more.
Then we went to town on our yard. We picked up all of the limbs, and mowed over all the fallen leaves and pine needles. I was also happy to put our porches back together since we had put everything up. Our yard now looks like nothing ever happened.
Here's a few pics from around town and our neighborhood:
We did discover a small leak in our master closet. After an adventure in the attic we think it's an easy fix. Oh, and a small hole was knocked out of the siding by some sort of projectile. Nothing serious.
My sister has a generator so we were able to go over and charge our flashlight and cell phones. They also rescued two baby squirrels! They fell out of their tree. An expert on raising squirrels now has them, but they were so cute!
We also grabbed dinner at Moe's together. They were open but had very limited ingredients. And it was packed due to the interstate travelers heading home. We have food at the house but it was nice to have a hot meal in the A/C.
So as I type this on my phone, outside, we still don't have power. Blake is expected to work tomorrow since their office is back up and running. I'm not sure what I'm going to do yet. I'm avoiding the cold shower I have waiting for me!
FPL promises all of our power will be on by Saturday...but we are hoping that it's much sooner than that!! Camping is fun and all but I'm so ready to be back in my normal routine.
Overall we are just thankful that it's over with and it wasn't worse.
Eeek, so happy to hear you guys are ok and that it could have been a lot worse! I've only experienced one hurricane and a few typhoons, but the one hurricane I experienced was ka-razy! But it veered off right before it hit Barbados (they are usually far south they don't get hit with hurricanes but this one was coming their way!!) but that night was scary AF!
ReplyDeleteThank you Julie! It can be so scary. The noises the wind makes are unreal!
DeleteI'm so glad you logged all this and shared it! I can't believe some of that damage- especially for you guys NOT getting the worst of it. Crazy! And a lifelong Ohioan I've never witnessed a hurricane. Occasionally we get tornado warnings that send us to the basement, but that's only once in a few years. Snow, too, but it's not that bad. This was super interesting for me! Glad you guys and the pups were safe and dry!
ReplyDeleteThank you Audrey! It's amazing that different parts of the same country can get such different weather. I can drive in the worst summer thunderstorm without thinking-the kind where you can't see but a few feet in front of you-but if I was asked to drive in snow I'd freak!
DeleteI just read every word of this post and found it fascinating. I love how you broke it up into the before, during, and after, along with what you should do and what you guys actually did. What a wild, wild weekend for the state of Florida. My goodness. I have a friend who has nearly lost her entire home. She had so many huge trees call of it that it's basically toast. So sad. Glad your house is okay and that you guys had each other to help prep and ride it out together. <3
ReplyDeleteThat's exactly why I decided to write this! So many people have never been through a hurricane, and yet Floridians deal with them every year. The images from south Florida are awful! I'm so sorry for your friend. Losing power is nothing compared with what a lot of people are going through.
DeleteI'm so relieved to hear that you didn't suffer too much damage! My grandma is in Florida too and I was so nervous all weekend. Luckily, they didn't lose power and only lost a gutter, I believe.
ReplyDeleteso glad y'all are safe! what a crazy couple of days. my father in law lives on the river in jax and had chest-level water in his home. so sad! also, I am obsessed with baby squirrels. they are too cute!
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