Hurricane Irma

[rockriver]

nothing significant at the house.
lights flickered... generator not used.
lots of limbs and debris in yards.
folks nearby lost power for several days.

I went out to pick up limbs. spent 15 minutes and only got a very small area.
then lightbulb went off. rake!
I had bought several pieces of used small tractor equipment from a friend.
one of them was a rake that had 40 spring times originally, but someone had cut off half the times.
I used this to smooth out the driveway once a year and when new gravel delivered.

about 5 or 6 feet wide... and wonderful for raking yard.
a little rough on the ground if there is little grass and the dirt is wet.

but the nearby church sure appreciated it's use and some neighbors sure saved days of backbreaking raking.

very large assisted living home/ nursing home/ Alzheimer ward complex in the area lost power. went off Monday, came back on Thursday... the facility had told folks, "don't worry, we have a generator."
yep. they sure do! BUT it only has power for emergency lighting and electric doors. no hvac. no kitchen, no lights or hvac in individual rooms. the saving factor was the fact that temperatures dropped during this time period.
---

[Mannlicher]

we made out ok. Highest winds, officially, in Gainesville was only 54 mph. We got about 12 inches of rain though. Lots of flooding. We have underground utilities, but the transformers are sitting on pads next to the road. Some flooded and shorted out, killing power in the 'hood for 13 hours.
My neighbor was under two to three feet of water. Only a few minor limbs down in my yard. Other parts of town are still without power. A lot of trees and power poles down. I had no damage to the casa. Did not even fire up my generator.
We dodged a bullet once again.

[protus]

Small towns.

So. The other night we hopped in the wife's bug out vehicle. A awd CRV. Lol.
And headed down to check on her farthers property. We went as far as we could. But roads we're under water. The wife was unwilling to get her tires wet. Which..inside I'm kinda ok with. No need for her to be brave.
So we turn around.
She sees a truck with box/stirage bed. Its white.
"They have been out here every night...."
Me -" they live there "
Wife- NO...see the truck..lets offer then some waters
Me- (right slipped)better go get some bush light
wife -what
Me- ohhhh nothing.

Do we pull over..she asked if they need anything..want waters..blah blah etc.

Guy waded over through the puddles to us.
Beer in hand.

Me- cough...this is gonna be good
Wife- @#!$ you..ha ha.

We get involved in a 30+ minute conversation that had me rolling.
We got all the Intel on everyone in a half mile.
All about the people who don't sit well with folks(druggies etc)
And about us.
That's the point of this story.

In his words
" y'all the folks that bought the nice house...and let the hedges grow real high out front (us -yes sir)....BESSSSST damn thing you did in my eyes.....considering ole Tim's family that lived across the street there for a bit ,they we're nothing but trouble "

We went round a but exchanging Intel..who's who..and typical small talk..shook hands..first and last introductions and typical "if you need anything " .
I offered to buy his jeep for 20$ lol and that started another round of info and jokes from both sides.


I wonder what else folks think about us now lol

[protus]

Sorry for the typos. The tablet has a retarded autocorrect.

[protus]

We lost power Sunday night. Around 11pm est. I expected it to go sooner.

Weather-
Lots of rain. The ground couldn't take it. We had several inches of water flowing through one area if the property. Unfortunately part of my house is on that side. No interior flooding,as my home is built above ground. But my AC and duct work got submerged. Its drying out ....
Never had that happen before.
Winds we're worse than Matthew. That last eastern track screwed us here on that west coast/I75 corridor. We stayed gusty and rainy till mid AM Monday and it wasn't safe to work outside till after noon time.

Damage .

House- all ok. Debris on the roof and a bent gutter. Above mentioned AC submersion.
Lost 3 trees that I can tell.(more on this later) . One that took out a section of my fence,one that fell across the main road blocking it, and one if my hickory trees that decided to sit on my car. Not to much damage but it has my hood looking like my car Sat at driving range all weekend.
I haven't made a complete tour of my back lots because of my job. They required us to be at work Tuesday AM... but from what I can see with walking knee deep in muck there's just dead fall.

We lost water for four hours Monday.
But that wasn't a concern. I'm sitting on just under 200 gallons stored. And had several flats of water plus every water bottle we had. So easy another 25-30gallons. We also have well. Manual pump. Its a shallow artisan. Aksi had several gallons of bleach and my trust katadyn ceradyn drip filter. Plus the hiker,mini,and guide/pocket. So we were good to go.

No power meant no lift stations.
Out came the lugaloo..and a pickle bucket. No..really..a firehouse pickle bucket .
One for solids,one for liquid waste.
Of course..for me..that was the nearest tree or off my deck.
Took a little but for the kid to warm up to it and for the wife to ensure waste and paper stayed desperate.
Solids I could bury..liquids I could dump..paper I could burn. If it became an extended issue.
Solid waste was bagged and placed in an used pool chem bucket with locking screw lid and placed outdoors.
Showers.
We had water so I used what we did in matthew. I took a garden hose 7 position wand . Strapped it to the border of the house . I places a small two ft pallet on the ground to stand on. Instant out door shower...with adjustable spray head lol.
Felt good at night to cool off.

Cooking- we camp a bunch do it was grilled or done on the Coleman two burner.

Power- I'm lacking or shall I say I was lazy and never set my panel up to backfired or as I want to power the old wallshaker in the living room. So many people have told me to tear it out. Nope. Its there to stay.
We powered fans ,deep Freddie and refrigerator,chargers and lights off a 4000 predator. Zero issue. Gas did ok.1/2 tank would get us about 5.5 hours. I never ran it all day or into the night.
A wheel kit and possible dedicated outhouse for it are being discussed.

Comms- ATT sucks. We new we'd lose service. So pre storm I hooked up my brother (lives 2 miles away from me ) with a CB since he doesn't have HT and I don't have a marine radio.
Good comms pre storm.
He also let us borrow a version WiFi hotspot. We enabled WiFi calling. Which have us what spotty service we had to at least touch base with friends and family.
We all installed zello on our phones.
This is hot or miss . Its biggest pro is channels I was on a channel from another forum(very large fun forum) . It was a dedicated Fla info style forum.
Days prior,and after folks from all over the state we're giving road Intel..area Intel..and least Carl eyes . Stuff internet or TH can't give you.
Folks evacing getting side routed to by pass traffic,which gas stations still had gas...which ones didn't,even though gas buddy good them it did.
2m and possible better CB/vhf on brothers end in the future. He was surprised on the CB end of things.
We wet up check in times,radio checks etc.

Over all we fared very well. Power and sewer restored in under five days.
River is rising ,that's the big concern.
Bad side was the kid broke her wrist Thursday before the cane and the wife fell and jammed hers at work.
So I was half crewed ..and both cranky from being hurt.

I think that's it..lol

[Bill Foster]

We were blessed in the mountains, no power outages here. Neighbors lost a few trees, but we were proactive with suspect pines. Just limbs and leaves to clean up.

[Patriotic Sheepdog]

Big surprise...Power back on for my AO yesterday about noon. Rest of area is spotty, literally from block to block, but FPL and Duke Energy seems to be working hard to restore it. I heard that there are still 2 million hoseholds, in FL, as of this morning without power. Per the local radio this morning, the power companies have brought in about 33,000 additional workers from California to Canada. Like LD3, just some more clean-up, but pretty much back to normal. Lift stations seem to be a big issue here in Central FL from what I'm hearing. Also, officials are waiting for the St. Johns river to peak, as additional flooding will occur.

[Lowdown3]

Got commercial power back on last night, then after an hour it went off again for about an hour, then came back on.

It's all over but a little more cleanup in these parts.

[Patriotic Sheepdog]

Checking in from Central FL...power out from 1900 sunday and currently not expected on til midnight on Sunday 9/17/17. Have genny purring so have some lights, fans, fridge and freezer going. Need to hook to my well pump, as it was a new genny and didnt have time to do this yet. Have 4-55 gal water barrels and 175gal water storage tank for my well, and my Big Berkey so water is good. Hauling 5 gallon buckets to the house from the barrels suck, but oh well. Had some roof damage with water intrusion to cause some of my ceiling to come down in one part...right on some of my storage bins. Lots of tree branches, and 6 fence sections down. Internet down at house with very spotty cell coverage. On internet at work. But...its only stuff. Im still here to complain.....
@qrprat77....I was monitoring SARnet the whole time true the storm.

[Lowdown3]

No commercial power here still either- Day 4.

Seriously thinking of working up a system to pump water from the rain collection tanks to the toilets to use for flushing. No such much for immediate use but because it's a PITA to use jugs to fill tanks. Don't have the elevation on the tanks to do it via gravity so may have to use a small 12v pump.

[qrprat77]

My folks near Ft. Myers got power back on today...44 hours. My Dad is going to get some gifts for Christmas that he may not ask for ;)

LOL that's good to hear, we're still out of power. I think we'll be doing something similar. Something small first, then something bigger, with the smaller unit being delegated to my "Emergency communications equipment" ;-)

[610Alpha]

My folks near Ft. Myers got power back on today...44 hours. My Dad is going to get some gifts for Christmas that he may not ask for ;)

[qrprat77]

We're alive, and I even heard from Spock, he's doing ok, weathered the storm one place, got back to his already.
Life in Lakeland is interesting, Publix is doing their best to get product out, it's an interesting time to be in the department I'm in. My house has no power, but my in-laws do, so wife and kids are bunking there while I be nite time watchdog.

[wwdnet]

No Problem

storm went over our heads, but you florida folks sufficiently wore it down! thanks.

our internet went down! it would show connected, then die about 30 seconds later...
just now, I decided to hard wire it... working better but very slow.

a few trees down, but they were in bad shape. I should have cut them down before.
lots of debris to clean up... no damage. concrete guy just finished slab on friday.. I asked if I should keep it wet. he just smiled and
said "no." storm will do that! and it did!

sounds like it could have been a whole lot worse!
Thank You Lord!
rr

You are quite welcome - we didn't mind 'weathering' the storm for our northern neighbors. We only lost power for about 17 hours, and considering the extent of the power outages in FL (75% or so at one point), that was an almost miraculous recovery. Generator made it more than tolerable since I was able to make/drink a pot of coffee this morning :D Lots of flooding all around us, but we were high and dry except for a few puddles on top of already saturated ground from the nor'easter that directly preceded Irma. Tomorrow is yard-cleaning day - all the time in the world since I retired on Friday (went out with an unintended bang!). Folks on the other side of the state weren't as lucky; praying for them! Glad everyone came through with lives intact, save one heart attack victim downstate (that we know of right now). Keeping a wary eye on Jose - hoping those less-than-accurate tracks got it right this time. If you're in NE FL and need any help, let me know.

[rockriver]

storm went over our heads, but you florida folks sufficiently wore it down! thanks.

our internet went down! it would show connected, then die about 30 seconds later...
just now, I decided to hard wire it... working better but very slow.

a few trees down, but they were in bad shape. I should have cut them down before.
lots of debris to clean up... no damage. concrete guy just finished slab on friday.. I asked if I should keep it wet. he just smiled and
said "no." storm will do that! and it did!

sounds like it could have been a whole lot worse!
Thank You Lord!
rr