October 17th, 2024

Howdy do to you.  I'm back.  Feels like I've been gone a REALLY long time but in fact it's been only about two weeks ish.  With good reason of course!

Don't know if you've heard but we had a bit of a pesky storm by name of Milton to deal with down here.  It's been a big year for storms in Florida this season.   Tropical Storm Debbie followed by Hurricane Helene who was  very cranky and then a mere two weeks later Milton hit us.  Wow.  I think (I hope) that's it for this season. I think I speak for all Floridians when I say, we are so over it. 

If you've never had the dubious pleasure of experiencing a hurricane let me enlighten you.  It's exhausting.  

The weather guys are great at keeping us updated with every bit of information and knowledge that they have and I love that.  The part that I don't love so much is that sometimes, despite all of their technology and talent and smarts,  they really can't fine tune it too much. So while we all know, sometimes for more than a week, that a storm is coming, we don't know, often until the very last minute, exactly where it's coming to.    And it matters.  It matters very much.

In the case of Milton, we knew that it was supposed to make landfall somewhere between Tampa and Ft Meyers, a distance of more than 130 miles.   If you can avoid being at ground zero for a hurricane (especially one as powerful as Milton) that is always the better choice.  And honestly, you don't have to go that far to be out of the worst of it.  But if you don't know where the doggone thing is going to end up, you don't know where or how far to go!!!

We were evacuated.  I mean, if you choose to stay, they won't throw down with you over it, but when an evacuation order is given, there is a reason, so unless you absolutely have no other option, you do as we did and you pack up  the kittens and associated caboodles and you go.  But go where?  Almost  everybody was going north which means the roads were going to be clogged, sometimes to the point of a highway looking more like a parking lot. Seriously, people have run out of gas trying to drive away from these storms and getting caught up in traffic and then there is no gas to be found anywhere.  A whole other issue.  Anyway, we opted to go south.

It was a decision to wrestle with a bit.  Being on the south side or "dirty side" of a hurricane always means risking flooding.  The wind pushes water on the backside of the storm so creeks become rivers, rivers overflow their banks and the ocean slaps the heck out of anything in it's way.  We ended up sheltering at a friend's house that was, (we fervently hoped) out of a flood zone.  Storm shutters were in place, very wisely,  but that also means not being able to see out so it's like living in a cave for the duration.

We evacuated on a Monday, the storm arrived on Wednesday into Thursday.  The shelter house lost power late Wednesday night after  flickering for hours.   The wind raged, the rain fell  and we patrolled the house with our flashlights through the night, looking for water intrusion.  We had a plan if the house flooded, no worries.  And it was a great plan too. Luckily, the water stayed out and even luckier the power was restored, at the shelter house, within 24 hours.  Yay!

Tim headed back to Venice to see if our House was still standing.  Yes that was a very real concern.  The storm made landfall at Siesta Key which is only 15 miles north of Venice.  It brought sustained winds over 120 miles an hour and a storm surge between 5 and 8 feet!  There were rumours of some neighborhoods (such as ours) being literally under water.  I was so relieved to get Tim's text once he arrived that our house was not only standing, but intact and dry.  Woohoo!  Still at that point, there was no power and no water.

Well, I can deal with no power for a time, but no water is a big nope from me. So we waited until water was restored to return on Saturday.  Despite a ton of  tree debris everywhere, it was so great so see our little house once again.  Tim moved Sandbags so we could get inside and as soon as we brought the kittyboys and all our crap inside, our first move was to open all the windows.  Next up was Tim trying to find - somewhere - some gas to start the generator while I applied myself to the odiferous task of throwing out everything in the fridge and freezer.  Gross.

After that was clean up.  Literally  picking up what Mother Nature threw down.  I've spent at least a few hours every morning since we returned hauling yard rubbish up to the lawn area beside the road for eventual collection.  At this point the pile is over 6 feet high, more than 6 feet wide and it spans the width from one side of the half circle driveway to the other. No idea how far that is....20 feet maybe?  Tim spent a lot of time cutting up things that were just too big to haul as they were.

Without power, there isn't much to do.  Tim attempted to work as much as possible from his cell phone. The generator, which is a godsend, keeps the fridge/freezer on, a few fans, a few lights and allows us to charge our phones. Yay!  But that's about it.  So cleaning is sweeping and cold water washing.  I swept a lot.  Cooking is not really possible.  Sadly, as much as we prepared (and we prepared) the house for the storm, we didn't think to get a new propane tank for the grill so that wasn't happening) So as things began to open, we caught probably one meal a day out somewhere.  Any other meals were "hurricane friendly foods" meaning food that do not require cooking or refrigeration.  Lots of crackers and granola bars.  Grocery Stores around here open very quickly, BUT most of their food has to be thrown out do to risk of contamination.  All meat, all frozen, all dairy including eggs. So it's slim pickins for a few days.

The generator needs to be fed, so every day Tim had to go out and find more gas, somewhere and that became a mission sometimes.  As I said, I worked on cleaning up the yard, sweeping the house aaaannnndddd that's about it.  I filled my days reading. I think I read 4 or perhaps it was 5 books waiting for the power to return.

Which is did late Tuesday night.  That of course did not go as planned.  The lineman repaired the lines early afternoon on Tuesday yayayayay!  Which started a fire!  boooooo!  Which they put out  YAYAYAY!  And cut down the damaged tree - necessary but sad.  And then restored the power which got everybody on our street and the street behind us back up and running EXCEPT our house and the guys behind us.  What??

Turns out that for whatever reason, those two houses ONLY had lines that went underground.  What??  And of course the linemen work on the lines...above ground, not the ones in the ground.  So someone else had to be called.  And they couldn't find "the box"  So there was much tramping around, cutting trees and shrubs, digging and the removal of part of a fence.  But eventually , after many hours and so very much work on their part, our power was restored and life gets sort of back to normal eventually.

And we are so tired.  Like everyone else.  Today I will venture out to the grocery store to replenish the larder.  I absolutely luxuriated in my hot shower this morning after many days of invigorating cold showers.  And tonight I will cook by golly!  Yesterday I caught up on the metric ton of laundry we had accumulated. Now I have a huge pile of ironing on the table patiently waiting.  And I need to vacuum desperately.

I heard somebody say, "that's the price you pay for living in Paradise"  Paradise? Really?  When I think of Paradise, I certainly don't envision life altering storms.   Perhaps that's the price we pay for living on the coast of Florida, I think that was is accurate and fair.  Regardless, I'm back.  We are safe.  The house still stands.  This house, by the way,  is a bit of a wonder to me.  She's small, old (by housing standards around here) with some really old (and other newer) windows and no storm shutters and she looks very unassuming but by gosh, she's got heart!  

So that's the story.  I need groceries and a nap. Not necessarily in that order.