Helene's dirty side graced us with a present of strong winds, tornado activity and massive storm surges, but luckily we didn't get the destructive category 4 style wrath that Tampa, the Big Bend and Panhandle got.
The stories I heard on the radio this morning are horrible. But we lived it similarly a blink of an eye ago.
My neighborhood seemed to be in a protective pocket, since the intersection just 10 minutes south of me was closed due to being under water last night. It just so happens that one of those streets that leads directly (in a way... 10 more minutes "in a way") to Fort Myers Beach. The connecting bridge to FMB is Matanzas Pass and both ends were under water. The beach had enough storm surge that the streets were re-flooding the houses and businesses that are still cleaning up from Ian.
By the way, tomorrow is the 2 year anniversary of what would be called (in the end) a Category 5 hurricane that decimated the area. GFY, Ian. GFY.
As ye old Northerners (Mainers, primarily) used to say, "you can't get there from here", due to the closures on my side of the fence (where's the justice, where's the sense). Therefore, what would be about 15ish minutes from where I live, is now over an hour because you need to drive into Bonita to get on to Estero Boulevard. Good luck being able to do anything close to Times Square since there's 4 feet of ocean hanging out where the living statues used to plant themselves.
I haven't been at the beach since before the storm of 2022, due to not wanting to "play tourist" while the locals are trying to put the pieces back together. Sure, any restaurant that is open needs business, but I'd rather make sure those who live on the island are served first. They need the area more than I do.
Helene's hydration wrath went onto Sanibel, Captiva and Pine Island, where she closed those bridges as well. Unfortunately, the only way into Sanibel (and subsequently Captiva) is the Causeway, the tough thing is that the waves beat down some of the new cement there. From what I heard, the water wasn't as bad as it was on the beach, but it was still standing room only at some of the businesses. Matlacha Bridge was also not passable, and videos showed the Gulf not paying attention in driving, as it was crossing a normally busy road in the wrong direction, leading that area bogged down as well.
Cape Coral had similar issues, and thousands are without power across this area. It's not as massively dark as what happened north of me, but the storm did enough local damage that there was a skeleton crew at work today.
We were all surprised at who came in, and my supervisor said it took her well over 90 minutes to get from her house to work, when it only takes about 30 on a good day. Others said they had random power loss but it wasn't constantly out. Others said they had enough tree limbs down that they knew it would be a great weekend for 52 pickup even though they were preparing for far worse.
(Yesterday) My mother and I listened to the wind blow and didn't watch the sun rise (damn the lies), as we also were expecting far worse. When we heard the intersection near us was under water, I went outside to see what was going on with our street. It was drier than the Mojave after its own rain storm. But the wind... the wind tried moving me across the driveway, and I'm far from being a skinny latte.
But today, my ride was pretty clean, minus land mines of down palm fronds in my community. What really shocked me was the fact only one set of intersection lights were out, and that was right before I got to work. No water in the street, no down power lines. For as much as the area floods where I work, they too were bone dry. To think just 3 blocks more, and that part of the city was under water. Whatever layer of plastic wrap that was over my community, seemed to be over the area I work at.
Weird.
I do have some photos of my community from yesterday. I didn't do much editing to them and you can see how the wind was doing something fierce. I had walked to the community gym and back, because I didn't want to waste using gas in my car in case we were trapped for a few days... better to keep a full tank in the event you've got to bug out (not that we have up to this point, unless you count the week we spent at Joe's place during Irma).
All photos taken on an iPhone and edited in Photoshop.
That's about all the update of the storm for now in Fort Myers. As I wrap this up, it's currently a Post Tropical Cyclone in Kentucky, so it's far enough inland to fizzle out pretty soon. There's something brewing in the Atlantic that could be near us by next weekend. Hopefully that too decides to turn and go somewhere else.
Until something else happens, keep your shirt on.
Cheers;
See Also
* I (intentionally mis)quoted Fleetwood Mac's The Chain, which is track 07 off the Rumours album - listened to the wind blow and didn't watch the sun rise (damn the lies)
* I quoted Richard (& Linda) Thompson's Walking on a Wire, which is track 02 off the Shoot Out The Lights album - (where's the justice, where's the sense).
* iPhone 11 (basically all "renewed" by Amazon)
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Thanks for sharing!