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Archive for September, 2017

Irma – Monday Morning

by on Sep.11, 2017, under Richard Bingle

Why do these things always happen overnight?

The winds and rain started in earnest Sunday evening and by 8 p.m. started experiencing some leaking in the front room and the front door (which faces roughly east). Scrambled to get some towels down and some fans blowing before things got too bad. Looking outside showed that the street had flooded up over the sidewalk out front.

Spent the next 6+ hours checking the towels, texting with a friend near Celebration, and watching one of the local networks storm coverage via an old iPhone on the TV via an Apple TV. At one point I had that network on one phone, another local network on the iPad, Fox News on another phone, and a live stream out the front window on my laptop. Had some brownouts just before midnight and moved into the laundry room on some cushions around 12:30 and watched the radar of the remnants of the eye wall pass over around 2:00 a.m. Got up a couple of times in the night to do a quick check.

Daylight revealed a bunch more screens on the enclosure were in need of replacing, the tulip tree in the backyard laying down parallel to the fence, the leaks having stopped, and the fence seemingly intact. The tulip tree had actually been knocked down by the hurricanes in 2004 when it was a sapling and we’d replanted it, so kind of sad to have lost it. The cypress tree right behind our fence by the conservation area is also down. Not sure if the sycamore next to it that is also down took it down or if they fell independently. The street is still flooded (but not as badly as last night) and there is also standing water down at the fence-line by the conservation area behind the house.

Winds are still steady at 30-35 mph with occasional gusts at 50+, so staying inside for now. Will likely take a nap soon because of not getting much sleep overnight.

— Rich

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Irma – Sunday Morning

by on Sep.10, 2017, under Richard Bingle

Well, after rushing home from Michigan to prepare the house for what the forecasters were saying at one point was to be a direct hit from hurricane Irma, everything has changed and the latest track has Irma skirting the Gulf coast. May still get some winds, but theoretically shouldn’t be that bad here.

So far the only excitement is that overnight someone drove over the two large community mailboxes across the street. I ended up calling the sheriff’s non-emergency number who transferred me to the highway patrol since a vehicle was involved. They ended up sending out a trooper who apparently picked up the bumper left behind. He said he had been in contact with the USPS to deal with picking up the boxes (hopefully) before the winds pick up here.

— Rich

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