Living in Mich can't imagine living thru a hurricane,grandson is in Bonita Beach,wasn't able to get out,daugther in Naples close to water,Phranque is in Sebring middle of state,looks like he may be in trouble also,prayers for all
Yes, ol don*, I'll bet we are all thinking of the folks in danger from the hurricanes, but I'm glad you mentioned it on this site.
I hope anyone who is in Texas, Florida, or any of the other areas in harm's way will post if you can and let us knows how you are doing. For starters, are you OK, Joan?
ol don, someone told me a story about a window washer who fell off his scaffold on the 64th floor of a skyscraper. As he plunged toward the ground, someone happened to be leaning out a fifth floor window and hollered to the guy as he passed, "How are you doing?", to which the guy replied, "So far, so good!" Well, that's our answer too, so far, so good. At present the eye is projected to pass over us here in east central Florida in the wee hours of Sunday morning with winds up to maybe 125 mph. I've got emergency food supplies plus a full tank of gasoline to run the Onan generator in our motorhome out back, which I can connect to backfeed into the house if we lose power, which is almost a certainty. That will allow us to keep our well pump for water as well as keeping the house fridge plus a few lights and fans going, so we should be OK barring unforseen structural damage. My son and I moved some porch furniture out into the barn today and we'll lash the remainder to porch railings tomorrow, and also cover one exposed window with plywood, and that's about the extent of our preparations. We've got our fingers crossed that the wind speed will have dropped considerably by the time it reaches us, and we probably won't sleep much Saturday night if the thing does pass right over us. We've weathered lots of hurricanes in our 64 years here, but none as ominous sounding as this one!
I hope everyone will remain safe. The latest projection is that Irma goes up through the middle of Florida which would mean it weakens to a tropical storm by the time it hits Georgia. That would spare the Carolina's.
There are actually three hurricanes in the Caribbean right now: Katia right off Mexico, Irma, and Jose just off the Caribbean outer islands.
http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/cyclones/
Good luck to Gourdchipper, Frank, Joan, and everyone in the area.
I'm in Jacksonville with my kids, sister who had to evacuate, her kids, cat and 2 dogs that don't get along. Brother is in Tallahassee where it's supposed to take a direct hit at approximately Cat 1. My oldest daughter is outside Tampa with her husband, the 2 yr old twins and her in laws who had to evacuate. It's been a whirlwind since this hurricane has moved all over the state as it has gotten closer and closer. That's the hardest thing to adjust to. Lived here all my life so I've been through quite a lot over the years but I still get anxious and nervous. Here we will get wind, rain and some storm surge. I'm not near the beach but not too far from St Johns River, but not in a flood zone. Just hope my neighborhood roads don't flood, which the did once with a lot of rain. I'll check back later.
My condo in Naples Fl but really more Bonita appears to be ok. Some trees down and no power but without going inside, unit appears not to have flooded and I am in ground unit. Hope and pray everyone is as lucky.
Irma turned out to be a walk in the park for most of us in east central Florida. Although we were under tornado watch for most of the day yesterday and probably experienced hurricane force winds for a few hours last evening, we never lost power and suffered no damage. About ten inches of rain left us with lots of standing water in the yard, which will delay our efforts in cleaning up literally hundreds of downed palm fronds and litter from oak trees, but the sun is out and life goes on.
Gourdchipper and Onewife, Glad you are ok. All of my family is without power, Tampa, Tallahassee and Jacksonville (me) but ok otherwise. My streets are flooded and flash flooding still in effect. Some kids up the street were kayaking down the road, lol! I don't have a generator but my daughter's boyfriend was able to make us coffee on the grill so that saved the day for me and my sister. I'm surprised by how little debris there is in my yard and the pool. Thankfully cleanup won't be so bad.
Grandson called from Bonita Springs,tree on the roof above his bedroom but the big tidal "surge" never happened,had 200+ orchids outside and they all survived,Naples however looks like a bomb hit,lots of water,most of the trailer parks nearby were totaled 5th street survived