The Hurricane Ian Experience
Every place on earth has its perks. It is these perks that draw us to certain places, if we have the freedom to choose these.
There aren't just perks . There are the floods, tsunamis, droughts and lastly the hurricanes that give us serious reality checks. I am a believer that climate changes increase the severity and frequency of natural disasters.
What I am saying is, that no matter where you live there will definitely be a time when nature shows its ugly side. Florida is known for its hurricane 🌀 season. Last year, in 2021 we got a little taste of it, when we had to evacuate our campsite at Fort Desoto.
This time, as the weather people kept an eye on this storm, we knew that once it was given a name, things would possibly become a bit more serious for Joe and I and our furries here in St. Pete.
Now, we're not easily scared nor do we buy into what the media likes to sensationalize. After following radar updates, we decided it might be time to do some prepping, in case it turns ugly and we have no power or worse.
Ian was supposed to make landfall here on Wednesday. Sunday I casually went to get a few groceries. No big deal, so I thought. Hmm... where did all the bottled water go? 💧 I see a lot of emptiness on shelves, where water used to reside. The gas stations have all of a sudden become everyone's favorite place to go. This Ian guy seems to be on everyone's mind. I go home with ice cream, some dairy items (what was I thinking) 🤒 and finally even water.
Monday comes around. I love scented candles. Maybe it's a good idea to stock up? Well, one can never go wrong with a good amount of said items. This time I come home with a variety bag. We're set! All that's left to do now is to strap in my enormous amount of plants in my garden. God forbid they get damaged. Can't have that! Clusters tightly squished together, then secured with straps, so no IAN can blow my pretty plants away!
The management barricaded the windows with hurricane proof mesh-like covers, making the inside of our place suddenly very dark. Unfortunately the management underestimated how long this task would take, and a lot of neighbors ended up putting these on themselves.
We're ready. So we thought.
It started with a beautiful Monday sunset. Except the colors were different than usual.
I had a feeling this was the prelude to what was headed our way.
Tuesday the sun was nowhere to be seen. A slight rain started. By night time the wind was howling at up to 65 miles an hour. It's still raining.
We lost power ealier that day and got to spend the night with our candles 🕯in full use while playing Romme' in the dark. Joe had the fantastic idea of creating additional lighting by putting up battery operated fairy lights on our ceiling fan. Either way, the things you can do are very limited when you have such little lighting, we found out. We were bored to say the least.
Even though the rain never amounted to much, O'Malley and Peanut didn't want to spend much time outside. Hurricane or not, dogs still have to go potty!
I felt surprisingly calm considering what was going on all around us outside. The biggest concern was the sound of what seemed like large boulders hitting the roof. Upon further investigation they weren't very large after all. What would it sound like when an actual large part of the tree would land on our place? Scary thoughts. Eventually we went to bed, wondering what we'd wake up to.
Part of our preparations were to charge our phones and power bank. We also had one flash light and had added water bottles to the freezer.
The next morning it was still gusty but it was obvious the hurricane had moved on. Our power continued to be non-existent until early afternoon.
27 hours went by from the time we lost power until it came back. This was not great news considering that our food in the fridge was getting pretty warm.
We went for a walk after breakfast . We saw mostly broken branches of all sizes, a few fallen or uprooted trees and as a result of that, some power lines down. Sirens sounded off in the distance frequently.
We heard that some neighborhoods didn't have power for several more days. Including our neighbors, 2 houses over. The few restaurants that were open had long lines outside. Probably the people without power?
Lessons learned:
Don't wait til 2 days before a hurricane to get water and supplies . According to our Eagle Scout son, lanterns should have been on my shopping list! Come up with things to do that don't require power nor light! (Between you and I, when you're in the middle of this kind of weather, oddly enough you don't feel like getting "romantic " either even though you have so much extra time, if you know what I mean! )
We consider ourselves very lucky. Lucky that the temperatures dropped enough to where being without power didn't result in us melting! Lucky that we only were "inconvenienced" for a day. Lucky that we still have our cars and a roof over our heads.
The hurricane made for interesting conversations. How spoiled we are, for instance. Mankind excisted before and still does in places with minimal "ammenities". Tribes that know how to function with bare nessesaties qiet well. And here we are, complaining about power outages! Who are we to complain anyway!
Our sincere thoughts go out to the residents of nearby Fort Meyers and surrounding areas that were not lucky. People like you and I that lost everything. Some lost their lives.
Our hearts go out to them.
Please consider making a donation:
YOU CAN HELP people affected by Hurricane Ian by visiting Redcross.org, calling 1-800-RED CROSS, or texting the word IAN to 90999 to make a $10 donation. Your gift is a commitment to helping people in need, and every single donation matters.
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Hurricane Ian information:
https://www.local10.com/weather/hurricane/2022/08/03/south-florida-hurricanes-where-do-they-form-when-do-they-strike/
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