It was Sept 10, 2017 and it's taken this long for me to blog about it. It was truly disheartening at time but in the end it was just what we needed.
We had plenty of time to prepare, a full week before we knew for sure it was headed for us and I can tell you that you really get tired of it. We should have been terrified but we were more exhauseted and immune by the time it actually came through.
We were never under an evacuation order and we probably wouldn't have gone even if there were one. A lot of people got stuck on the highways heading north and by that time there was no gas to be found anyway.
Thar she blows. Although the eye didn't come through until after dark we lost power at about 11:00 that day. It was windy as hell for a very long time. We watched the property fill up, we watched trees fall we watched the roof come off my shed.
We did not board up which seemed like a good idea until the last day or so when the news said it was going to hit as a Cat5. By that time you couldn't find a piece of plywood anywhere. This is our last minute redneck solution: the mattress againsr the french doors.
I couldn't keep Mike inside.
About 4:00 we closed ourselves up in our little hidey hole. We made a nice comfy bed in the bathtub, brought in the animals, food and water, and bug out bag and settled in to listen to the wind blow.
We watched the news on a little battery powered TV and listened as they reported the hurricane coming through Marco Island. It was dark by then. At about 8:00 it was heading inland over Lehigh Acres and we knew we were next in line.
We're glued to that little TV set waiting for updates....
and waiting for updates....
Nope! There's a fence down on Marco. That was what they were reporting! Thanks goodness I still had cell reception and my son in Kansas City was sending me updates and radar pics so we weren't completely in the blind.
We were able to go out later that night and get a glimpse of the damage with a flashlight. Later we learned there were 3 tornados reported in the Labelle area, one came right through our area. We never heard it.
The neighbors from 6 acres over donated us a Carolina carport. That will come in handy later... once the water receeds.
That was my garden shop. I threw away so much stuff that was waterlogged and battered.
Here's the flag pole, snapped off at the base and the flag shredded to nothing.
This is where our well pump was....
This is where it ended up.
I can't count the trees we lost but we were just fine and ready to start the cleanup. All of our neighbors came through, too. There was supposed to be 12 foot water surge on the coast but that never happened so over all there was less damage than was expected.
Taking a bath in the pond, hauling in water to slosh the toilets, cooking and eating by candlelight is fun for about 3 days. It was hot but we did have a generator. This old window air conditioner, brought when we moved here from Arkansas and sat in the shed for 12 years, fired right up.
A lifesaver!
Ah, there's a rainbow. It gets better, it really does.
Read on about Irma's Construction.
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