- 15 Sep 2017 23:32
#14843940
SATURDAY As the storm started tracking away from hitting the east coast ( Miami) and the models slowly put the eye to the South West coast of Florida and directly into Fort Myers and Cape Coral, I knew it was time to board up. It shouldn’t have been much of a problem since I have been through this before with hurricanes Charlie, a cat 4 and Wilma. I grabbed the first piece of plywood and grunted and hauled it up over my head, and as I have one hand to hold it in place the other grabbing the Tapcon screws and one foot on the latter I’m like “son of a bitch” I painted the house since the last storm, none of the original holes were visible. This wouldn’t have been a problem if I was drilling into wood, but most of homes here are made of concrete block and I don’t have a mason’s drill bit. After running to Home Depot, only a couple miles away no big deal, my mind was on the massive crowd that was going to be there getting last minutes supplies, and not my wallet which I left at home Fuuuck. LOL Got my wallet went back knowing they wouldn’t have any concrete drill bits (I was correct) came home and fortunately my neighbor was home and he had some. I finally got ½ the windows done before I was too tired to do anymore. Slept like a baby.
SUNDAY Woke up early the winds were already getting started but I frantically finished the rest of the windows and felt pretty good about things, at least I had my fuel, food, generator, and water that I had been saving all week long since there wasn’t any water to purchase for days. The storm was down graded to a cat 3 but I knew it would upgrade to a 4 once it was done thrashing Cuba
2PM As the winds started to get stronger and gusts started picking up I braced the garage door by putting plywood and the ladder up to it, and then backing the car up against it. All the while watching the news in- between water breaks, as it was hot and humid as hell. Something on the news was strange that really got my attention. They started talking about storm surge in Feet above road level, not canal level. Cape Coral Florida has the largest canal system in the world something like 400 miles, and my variance is almost 9 feet above sea level. The local news anchors were going town by town with graphics saying you will have 6 to 9 feet of water in your home, NOT canal or tide levels but the street level!!! Now I’m like Fuuuuck again LOL. The water in my canal was a low as I have ever seen it in a long time. A friend that lived 22 miles east of me offered the day before to stay with him. Not knowing if I was going to have to put my mattress on the pool table, or worse sit on my roof, at the last minute I decide to throw a bunch of shit in the car and evacuate. Now I had everything in the car including the dog and I have to move the plywood and ladder to get it out. I hit the garage door opener and something got lodged and the door came off the track, Fuuuck again. By now the rain is coming down pretty good and sideways fortunately I put it back on track secured the door and got on the road. Now it’s getting nautical out, no one on the roads some limbs down already and I’m just blowing through stop lights on my way to Lee High Acers Florida 22 miles east. It hit me halfway there, that I may not have anything to come back too, not a good feeling at all thinking you can lose everything.
3PM Still full of adrenaline and a little confused and shocked we watched the news and storm tracking and showing all the water in some of the harbors getting sucked out into the Gulf of Mexico, it was surreal, hundreds of yards emptied. Then we watched some more until the power went off and switched to the radio, where they had the TV broadcast streaming. Something got our attention again the storm was tracking back to the east.
5PM The storm winds were picking up big time, and by now we learned the eye wall was going to hit Marco Island, Naples, Bonita Spring, and Lee High Acres, the freaking town I evacuated too. Fuuuuck again. Listening to the radio they would tell each town when you need to get to your safe spot as the eye wall approached. This was a giant waiting game and was one of the reason I evacuated, thinking about waiting 8 hours for this storm surge to hit my house was going to be torture.
6 PM the eye wall is on top of us, this was a very slow-moving storm so for an hour we got hammered by huge winds and sheets of rain and a giant limb from a Ficus tree fell on the roof, fortunately it did not put a hole in it. It was a crazy day we listened to the radio and played a few card games until passing out.
THE DAY AFTER The next day it was hard to get out of Lee High Acres because the roads were flooded badly, but I was able to eventually find a route. It was nuts, no traffic lights, crazy drivers, and it looked like a bomb went off. Roofs missing, trees, power lines, signs, and widows out. As I got closer to home things started looking better, lots of tree damage but not like Lee High. I turned the corner to my home and was relived to notice nothing too different. Lost a piece of facia from my roof and half the ceiling in my garage was cracked and caved in enough to not be able to open the garage door. Was feeling blessed that I avoided disaster. The water came over the canal and maybe 4 foot on my lawn but the storm surge didn’t play out anything like the news was hyping. Got my power back on in 2 days, and finally today got cable and internet back, even though it keeps going on and off. My friends in Lee High still don’t have power.
have some video but not sure how to attach from Iphone
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- By annatar1914
- By Tainari88