Hurricane Irma & Readiness

9
3.9K followers

I write this because I feel it is important for everyone that lives in an area that gets Hurricanes to be ready. My son and I moved to the west coast of Florida about 5 months ago. I picked the west coast mainly because they hadn't seen a hurricane in over 100 years. I felt safe. We were leaving Texas where our house had just gotten pummeled by the wonderful Texas storms. Of course that is what insurance is for, and it all worked out in the end, other than getting totally taken advantage of by contractors and loosing most of the insurance money to a con artist. But we lived thru it all, finally got everything repaired and moved on to wonderful Florida.

I have lived thru earthquakes in Alaska, then tornadoes and hail storms in Texas. Now I can say that I have lived thru a hurricane. I still have to say that Texas tornadoes scare me more than anything. Although the day before the eye of Irma was supposed to hit, I was pretty panicky and scared. I had decided that my son and I would "weather" out the storm in our house....until I saw that the eye was supposed to come directly over us and we were urged to evacuate. I hesitated, I did not want my house destroyed, as if staying would have kept it up. In the end, we evacuated late Friday night and just drove east. Of course we were not prepared and there were absolutely no hotels to be had. Luckily I have some wonderful friends who found us a place to stay.

Then to find out the storm had shifted more east and was now on track to go directly over us where we had evacuated to! At this point, all we could do was hope and pray that we would be safe. It was tremendous, the wind, the noise of everything rattling and wanting to collapse and the torrential rain coming down. I had parked my car in a spot I felt was the most safe. The power went out and we were in total darkness, and all we could do was wait. Wait until it passed and wait until the calm. And it did come, the wind basically stopped, along with the rain. Seemed kind of strange. Of course, it was like a moment, that moment to take a breath and check on everything.

We had very little gas, no food, nothing open, no gas at the pumps...so really wasn't sure how we were going to get back home or if it was safe due to floods or what not. At this point, I just wanted to get home. Irma had made her path, and I just wanted to be home after two nights of no sleep and worry. I checked the gas in our car and if there was no problems getting home, we would arrive in fumes. We decided that is what we wanted to do. My son and I just both wanted to be home.

We did make it with just enough gas, and I knew at least we were home and the pumps would have something soon. It just felt good to be home. Our house survived with minimal damage, I say that because everything is fixable....just not lives.

Lesson learned? I am going to be prepared for the next one. It may not hit in my lifetime, but I will have everything I need just in case. Because let me tell you, trying to get prepared after you know it is coming is next to impossible. I got to the store fairly quickly and they were already out of flashlights, water, water jugs, gas jugs, gatorade, and the rest of the canned food was slim pickings. We had to compromise with candles and such. Be ready, be prepared, as you never know when a disaster is going to hit. As I said, after the fact, it is hard to prepare when so many are doing the same thing.

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Recent Comments

10

We live in Estero - It is just north of Naples and Bonita Springs which got flooded and people lost everything. The eye past right over our house. Funny thing . . . I was writing a post on WA during the storm and submitted just minutes before the power went out for 3 days. We were blessed and suffered very little damage, but our neighborhood will be months in cleanup with thousands of Oak trees downed as well as many street signs and street lights. Everyone is coming together though and it's good to find that we have wonderful neighbors.

I hope that you have recovered and are doing well.

Peace, William

So glad you made it through.

Heck of a story! Glad you survived to tell that tale! Hang in there!

Steve

What a story! I cannot even imagine going through this, but would just want to be home as well. I know you must have left home with out much of what you really needed after you got to where you thought was going to be a safer place.

Just now, in 'safe' area of the Portland Oregon area, I am very low on fuel, have to get a tankful this morning! I wonder why I let this happen in view of all of the possibilities, but it is really hard to stay prepared.

There are many checklists online, Red Cross and many more! You are preparing for the next time and will be more comfortable! Bug out bags for leaving and equipment for staying, such as generators will have to be sorted out.

I am so glad you are safe! You will always have a great story to tell your grandchildren!

Lynne

Hi Leahrae, Well welcome to Florida! I've lived here since 1967 on the east coast "Central Florida". And you can never be totally prepared for the storms. I liken them to a giant spinning top. And they go wherever they choose. And despite all our sophisticated weather forecast technology. You never really no what they're gonna do. So just enjoy Florida for what it is. In my humble opinion a really great place to live......Mike

Hi, Iam glat that you survived the ordeal unharmed. you see it is always good to plan ahead of disaster since we never know when it will strike. All the best of wishes.
Seth

Thanks for sharing your experience and good to see that you are both OK
Best wishes and keep a positive approach
Cheers PB

Hi, Leahrae,

First, I am so happy that both you and your son were able to survive through Hurricane Irma where you lived in Florida. Furthermore, I am happy that there was only minimal damage done to your house. Many others, especially in the Florida Keys were not as lucky. Some people perished including, inexplicably, people out in their vehicles during the height of the hurricane.

I am also glad that it appears you made the wise decision to evacuate ahead of the storm. Some people interviewed on television stated that they were going nowhere, preferring to stick it out at home, believing that they could stop this dangerous hurricane from damaging their homes when it hit last weekend. Truly what could they have done and I pray that they're all still alive.

My aunt ended up talking to a relative coming from her side of the family, (she was my late uncle's second wife) who lived in Hollywood, FL above Miami. In talking to her late last week, my aunt who just had gotten off of the phone with him told me that her relative and his family were not budging. Luckily for them it appeared that the major brunt of the storm veered away from the East Coast of FL although Miami still had a lot of major devastation occur to many of the city's buildings and landmarks. Still, his decision in putting his entire family at risk could have ended up in an awful tragedy.

Yes, it is always better to be prepared ahead of time before a natural disaster such as a hurricane when it is definitively predicted to hit the area in which you live. I went through Hurricane Gloria when that storm barreled its way up the East Coast back in Oct. of 1985. When it arrived up in Connecticut in a very weak state, (no more than a tropical storm) still the devastation that it left in its wake was horrific. The weakened eye of the storm went right through our town. The town that I lived in looked like a war zone afterwards with trees down all over the place. I seem to recall that no one in the town perished. As I also recall we lost power for at least 4 or 5 days after the storm had moved out.

I also remember both before and after the storm passed through CT, they kept playing on FM radio the song "Gloria" which had previously been a hit by the Irish rock group U2.

Hopefully and soon life will return as normal as possible for you in your area of Florida!

Jeff

Yes, true. I lived for a long time on the East Coast of Florida and had what I called my Hurricane Box. It is a large plastic storage trunk that seals. Inside I have everything you need including freeze dried meals and water purification system. We go through it once a year in case something needs to be updated. This hurricane got lots of attention of course being so strong, but we used to have to go through this many times a year - even though it was lesser strength hurricanes. So it is something every family should have. Mine was big enough to hold everything and small enough to throw in the back of the car if we had to leave.

LOL! it's serious but funny the way you describe getting caught in all of them even when you move out of their path! I heard of a guy moved to the Falklands because he thought it was the safest place on earth, soon after that, war broke out! Good that you guys survived because as unlucky as you seem to be, luck follows you around too :)

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