This was a bad one
I'm fine. We barely even got wind here in Tampa. It was dark and it rained a bit in the morning (my favorite kind of weather). The afternoon was just beautiful.
However, my family got the worst of it. They're in Clewiston, my hometown. It's about 3 hours southeast of Tampa. About an hour northwest of Ft. Lauderdale. They were on the edge of the eye the entire time. They got the front, top, and back edges of the eye....but never the eye itself. So there was never a break in the action.
I talked to my brother (Trackstar) just now (landlines don't need electricity). Our town got destroyed. Said it's pretty surreal. Everything got flattened and the debris is everywhere. Lots of people lost everything.
They've been told it'll be a minimum two weeks before they get electricity. Right now, it's absolutely pitch black outside. There's a 6pm-6am curfew for the county. The National Guard is already there. Obviously nobody can work or do anything. Stores won't be open for a long time. And most people don't have a lot of money. So food and water are going to be in great demand.
Sugar cane and citrus are the dominant industries down there. So the migrant population is considerable. My brother said they drove down to those areas of town afterwards. And there were so many people.....families, adults, children, etc. just sitting on the ground crying. Other people were just walking around aimlessly, in shock. Most of them had evacuated and returned to find that everything was gone. They've lost everything.
Our town is right on the south banks of Lake Okeechobee. The entire town used to be sugar cane fields (way back when). So there are canals everywhere. The water district drained every canal until it was bone dry in the days leading up. But the canals and the streets still became one big body of water during the storm.
Fortunately, the drainage is excellent around there. So the water in the streets is going down fast. And the dyke that protects the surrounding land from the Lake had zero problems handling the storm.
At our house, all the trees in our yard were uprooted. One fell on my dad's truck. All the shingles on our roof are gone (they're in the yard). There's a pretty bad leak in one part of the house. Of course, there's debris and things of that nature everywhere. Most of the houses on our block are still standing, but nothing else. It's like somebody came and just cleared everything out. My brother said it's almost unrecognizable.
Luckily, my dad is good at what he does (building things). So our house stood up better than most. Even the aluminum roof to our patio/deck withstood. Actually, most buildings/structures he's built around town withstood the storm.
My brother said they watched the trees just come out of the ground in our yard. They watched big pieces of metal just fly down the street. The wind was so loud. And it rained so hard they could only see out of one window in the house.
We were lucky though. The storm moved fast. And it was only a CAT 3 instead of the CAT 5 it was in Mexico. My family is fine. Our house is ok. And we've got a couple of big generators. We're a lot more fortunate than the thousands who are now homeless and had very little to begin with in our town. My heart goes out to them. I'm truly sorry. Especially when it's "home".
My brother said it's going to be a long time before things get back to normal. I wish I was there right now to see it and help out.
I'm fine. We barely even got wind here in Tampa. It was dark and it rained a bit in the morning (my favorite kind of weather). The afternoon was just beautiful.
However, my family got the worst of it. They're in Clewiston, my hometown. It's about 3 hours southeast of Tampa. About an hour northwest of Ft. Lauderdale. They were on the edge of the eye the entire time. They got the front, top, and back edges of the eye....but never the eye itself. So there was never a break in the action.
I talked to my brother (Trackstar) just now (landlines don't need electricity). Our town got destroyed. Said it's pretty surreal. Everything got flattened and the debris is everywhere. Lots of people lost everything.
They've been told it'll be a minimum two weeks before they get electricity. Right now, it's absolutely pitch black outside. There's a 6pm-6am curfew for the county. The National Guard is already there. Obviously nobody can work or do anything. Stores won't be open for a long time. And most people don't have a lot of money. So food and water are going to be in great demand.
Sugar cane and citrus are the dominant industries down there. So the migrant population is considerable. My brother said they drove down to those areas of town afterwards. And there were so many people.....families, adults, children, etc. just sitting on the ground crying. Other people were just walking around aimlessly, in shock. Most of them had evacuated and returned to find that everything was gone. They've lost everything.
Our town is right on the south banks of Lake Okeechobee. The entire town used to be sugar cane fields (way back when). So there are canals everywhere. The water district drained every canal until it was bone dry in the days leading up. But the canals and the streets still became one big body of water during the storm.
Fortunately, the drainage is excellent around there. So the water in the streets is going down fast. And the dyke that protects the surrounding land from the Lake had zero problems handling the storm.
At our house, all the trees in our yard were uprooted. One fell on my dad's truck. All the shingles on our roof are gone (they're in the yard). There's a pretty bad leak in one part of the house. Of course, there's debris and things of that nature everywhere. Most of the houses on our block are still standing, but nothing else. It's like somebody came and just cleared everything out. My brother said it's almost unrecognizable.
Luckily, my dad is good at what he does (building things). So our house stood up better than most. Even the aluminum roof to our patio/deck withstood. Actually, most buildings/structures he's built around town withstood the storm.
My brother said they watched the trees just come out of the ground in our yard. They watched big pieces of metal just fly down the street. The wind was so loud. And it rained so hard they could only see out of one window in the house.
We were lucky though. The storm moved fast. And it was only a CAT 3 instead of the CAT 5 it was in Mexico. My family is fine. Our house is ok. And we've got a couple of big generators. We're a lot more fortunate than the thousands who are now homeless and had very little to begin with in our town. My heart goes out to them. I'm truly sorry. Especially when it's "home".
My brother said it's going to be a long time before things get back to normal. I wish I was there right now to see it and help out.
