"The Warehouse never gets filled": "It's like we're moving again"

I don't even know where to begin; it's been quite the hectic ride the past week. I am home, I am safe, but I can't say the same about everyone else.

Yes, I survived the Great Floridian Hurricane of (September) 2017. Irma has come and went, and she was a real piece of work while visiting.

What turned out to be "we're gonna stay in our shuttered house and ride it out" turned into "fahk. We gotta go". Friday the 8th was spent getting Emergency Management / Emergency Alert texts on our phones and we sat in the living room like "let's hope it'll be okay". Some of our neighbors were planning on riding it out and we all seemed to band together in agreement: the downstairs people get water, they can figure out a way to go upstairs to the upstairs neighbors. The upstairs neighbors have a problem, come downstairs. Well, by 9pm Friday night, when the second Emergency Management phone call came, stating that it's too late to evacuate the state and this is the last warning to find shelter. We decided we need to find higher ground.

Where I am in Fort Myers, it's considered Zone A, a flood zone.

My mom called a cousin (Ellen) who lives in the area, and she too, is considered Zone A and needed to evacuate. After making some calls, Ellen was in contact with her snowbird neighbor, Joe. During season, Joe lives with his woman friend in the house next to Ellen. The woman owns the unit they live in, while Joe owns a house across the city, out of the flood zone and had shatter proof / hurricane proof windows. Since Ellen has a key and the house is empty, Joe was a life saver and said "get to my house as soon as you can". With a go bag packed, furniture moved and stuff piled in high places on Friday, it was too late to run across the city. Saturday morning we were picked up and drove over to Joe's.

Side note about packing: There is very little you think about packing in emergencies. What can you do? There are no basements or attics in these houses, so there's no place to store anything at a high level. All we could do was hope and pray we wouldn't get flooded out. They say you should pack at least 3 days worth of stuff, although there are conflicting comments, saying pack a minimal 7 days. You just never know. But whatever you pack for, you're going to need clothes and necessities (food, water, batteries, candles, matches / lighters, lanterns, radios, etc). See suggested links on the bottom of this blog post.

Once we got to Joe's on Saturday, we unloaded the car. Three adults and two little doggies (one happened to be Joe's step-granddog. The dog's parents were getting married up north this past weekend... a whole different story, not for blog use). After looking around the house, we were shocked to see the windows weren't covered up. Joe assured us over the phone that his windows were hurricane / shatter proof so there was no need to put shutters up. It wasn't until later that day we noticed the aluminum shutters in the garage. By then, it was too little too late because we didn't know a lot of the neighbors and who would actually be home, to be able to help us out. Shutters can take 2 or more hours to put up and with this being a decent size house, there was no way we could do anything. So, we had to stick it out and really hope the windows and doors wouldn't give out.

Since Joe is a snowbird, he shut his cable off (TV, Internet) for the duration of him staying up north (as well as when he is living with his woman friend next to Ellen during season). This means we had no access to the news or computers while we had power. With the grace of quick thinking, I had packed my Roku 3 in my backpack, just because I figured we'd want to watch something besides the fear mongering news outlets.

Yes, the news was getting scary and telling people not to listen to social media or other news casts. It was like we were going to war with this invisible force. It was crazy.

The power of technology and the ability to find a neighbor's semi - fair - bordering - poor XfinityWifi spray, I was able to connect my Roku to the wireless signal and get us online to watch something. We alternated between ABCNews, NBCNews and CBSNews until we got sick of them streaming clips and I was able to download a local Fox affiliate app. At least we could get local talk for as long as the internet came through and the power was on. Very little "news" apps have a 'Watch Live' link in the app, come to find out.

As the rain came and drenched the lanai on Saturday, there wasn't much going on. We knew the main highways and roads were becoming closed and the last of the "get out of dodge" people were trying to leave (when they shouldn't have been), we wondered what else we could do. Storm was coming through the island countries and destroying them in its wake. It was a matter of time before it hit the Florida Keys and made its way to us.

The day progressed and we were able to keep an eye out on the world and went to bed Saturday night wondering what we'd wake up to.

Sunday was the same; rain, dreary, but we knew we were in for the long haul for the day. By noon the man made lake in Joe's back yard, had crept up significantly and we thought it would only be a matter of time before we'd see it in the lanai (which it never happened). The power had flickered for a brief moment and we knew it was a sign things were coming. The news was reporting there were parts of the Keys that had been demolished and Irma was on her way to Marco island. She had turned from being mainly an east coast storm to a west coast storm, but still threw down from Jupiter to Miami and points in between. By two pm, Irma dumped her eye on Marco and Naples and was moving more towards Fort Myers. I know those two Collier County cities aren't looking to great right now, as part of the Naples Grande Hotel had their roof collapse (I had heard this on the radio).

By 6pm Sunday, the category 5 hurricane had been turned into a category 4 and was upon us. We watched in awe as there was a complete white out over the lake. Water was misting everywhere and the wind was strong. 40 minutes later, it was dead silent as the eye had hit us and we got to see the extent of any damage for the first part of the storm. The screens on the lanai cage had popped, but the cage remained unscathed. The water stayed where it was in the backyard, but now Joe had front lake side property; there was a river running down his street. The water ran halfway up the driveways and not into the house. We couldn't believe the amount of water surging down the street. My cousin attempted to take the dogs out, but they wouldn't do their business because of the water. After they got brought inside, she asked me to go out and look at the street with her. She ended up walking to the middle of the street where the water was just below her knees (like a foot and a half high). She wanted me to walk in the middle of the road with her, but I had my camera and I didn't want to get it ruined. It was drizzling at this moment too. So I took pictures and we went back inside. Not 15 minutes later, the power surged and shut off, and we were stuck with just our battery powered radio as company. We lit candles and by 7:40, it was getting dark and the waters were moving again. The second half of the storm was starting. By this time there was not more we could do, as far as watching life around us, so we decided to pretend we were living in "old times" and amused ourselves by listening to radio news. I kept saying "The Shadow is better! Why can't we be listening to that??".

There came a time during the night where we were all so tired from sitting around worrying, that we all went to bed. By dawn the next morning, things had cleared up and Irma was far away from us. The river in front of Joe's had left around 7 and we were able to see what the street looked like. A couple big trees had fallen and people had screens everywhere. There was debris all over the place but it looked like no one had damage to their houses. Joe's lanai was filthy with debris and popped screens, but no harm done to his house or the lanai cage.

Once it was safe to venture out into the world, we slowly made our way to our respective communities. Between Joe's house and my complex, there are a lot of big intersections. All of which had no power, a lot of flooding and fallen trees. Everyone seemed to have the same idea by being on the road, so it was tough to get around. Unfortunately, there were no traffic details around (police directing traffic) so people were on their own trying to get through the roads. Once we got to my community, it looked like a war zone. No damage to buildings, but all the landscaping was destroyed. My friend in England had visited a few years ago, and she said that the main boulevard looked like a Hollywood Studio movie because of the palm trees. Well, Ray, it's no longer that pretty! All the trees were down, ripped right from their roots. Palm fronds are everywhere, if the entire tree hasn't collapsed.

We drove around the complex to find many people out and about. Our friends houses fared well and had no outside damage. People were fine, but there was no electricity. Power had been out since Sunday afternoon. We were able to run into our house to make sure things were okay, so with phones in hand (flashlight!), we took a quick look around, grabbed more supplies (clothes and food that was in the midst of defrosting) and made like Tigger and bounced to our cousin's community to check her place. Surprisingly, the frozen food was still frozen, which as a great sign, but we took stuff anyway because we didn't want to risk it. Joe is on the fire department grid, so we only lost power in his house for 5 hours. The house was lit as of midnight Sunday.

Going from my house to my cousin's, the same thing happened with the intersections - be mindful of where you're driving! Her community looked pristine compared to ours, as we only saw 2 big trees down, and one had uprooted the sidewalk. Her house was dry, and her community out of power. As of this post, it's still dark, so she is at Joe's. We luckily have our power restored (finally) because we are on the hospital grid. Why it took two days longer than Joe's fire department, we don't know.

Once everything was checked, we made our way back to Joe's. Since no one had power, we had no reason to stay. We very well could have moved back in, but for what? We had lights, we had clean clothes, we were lucky to have a friend like him. Our neighbors that sat it out were the ones truly in the dark - we could watch the storm pass us and they only heard it because they had their shutters up. They didn't know what was going on... they had no idea what type of world they would see once they opened their front door. But all in all, everyone we talked to is extremely lucky. It could have been worse for our little corner of the city, but it wasn't.

Since our friends in the community called us Tuesday afternoon saying they had power, my mom and I came home. She said "it's like we are moving all over again" because we had to move our furniture back to where it all was, put the things away we scattered through out the house, refill cabinets... it's chaos inside because you're trying to make life the way it was before you had to run out and worry about things being damaged. Again, we are so grateful everything is fine, but just driving 5 minutes down the main road, it's a different story. A preschool is under water. A little fruit stand is under water, but the next block has all new Habitat For Humanity houses and they are unscathed. Still areas of the city are without power and under water. News reports say the east coast and some parts of Florida will see power on by tomorrow. The rest of the state could be delayed until the 22nd. So it's fair game as to who will see what and when, and what people can do to fix their communities.

North Fort Myers and Lehigh are the two local areas that got destroyed, so I'm told. Collier County has Naples and Marco Island. Cape Coral is completely fine, as I saw someone today. He said his major damage was his car port but that hit nothing. His community is clean. It all depends on where you are and how bad it was hit.

It's so crazy how this all happened. We all learned a valuable lesson in this and everyone is taking it differently. Normally Southwest Florida isn't affected by these types of storms, or at least it's not as bad. I heard on the radio that there are Cracker Houses that were built in the 1920s and withstood a major hurricane in the 1930s, are still standing. But the mobile homes near the beach are swimming in water and the once in Immokalee have completely collapsed. You just don't know.

Something interesting I found out and posted on a social network site:

In the (beach) communities that have bridge access (Fort Myers Beach, the Keys, Sanibel / Captiva), you have to have gone to your local government office and get a special hurricane resident pass if you are a resident. This is to be used when you get evacuated. You have to get one every time something like this happens; it's not a "get it once and keep it forever" deal because it has to be updated constantly. People move, things happen. So you need to bring a utility bill, state issued ID, passport, and one other thing (I forget what) to prove you live in that city / area. You then get a pass to show a guard at the entrance of the bridge that you live there. Or if any government agent (police, etc) stops you to ask what you are doing, you can prove you are a resident. It is to prevent looting and rioting in the city and try to make clean up easier for the people to live there. I know it sounds like some sort of thing worse than Martial Law, but it's to protect the neighbourhoods. It's not meant to be a bad thing because the cities want their people to be able to get home to a safe place and be able to see what they need to work on / clean up, rather than worry about someone nicking their stuff.

A friend of mine said that they will probably reclassify hurricanes now after this because a category 5 is no longer a category 5. The last big cat 5 that had devastated parts of Florida, was Andrew in 1992. Prior to that was Donna in 1960. Charley in 2004 was a category 4, although devastating, there was no big comparison. There still isn't any comparisons because Irma outclassed every single Florida hit hurricane.

I know I haven't covered every single event that happened in the state with this hurricane, but I wanted to cover what I experienced. Everyone has gone through their own version of the story and I know the news outlets have beaten this to death, but it's all something we need to know. It's now a piece of our history. I hope the places that got destroyed are able to get some help by the local governments and state governments (including country government, depending on where it is), and that something like this doesn't happen again for a very long time.

Take care of yourselves and be good!

Cheers;

Pictures or it didn't happen (Plus a video uploaded to YouTube):
* Note: All photos and video are taken on a Canon EOS Rebel T3 Digital SLR Camera with EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 IS Lens and edited either with Photoshop (for the photos) or Pinnacle Studio 18 Ultimate [Download] (Old Version) (for the video)

Joe's house during the storm: