Sunday, August 19, 2018

A Year Later....

The news media here in Florida (as well as around the Southeast) has been reminding us that the disastrous 2017 hurricane season began its run as Hurricane Harvey was forming a year ago.

We're fortunate that this year it would seem that things are much more calm:


Of course, this past week marked the 14th anniversary of Hurricane Charley hitting Florida (August 14th, 2004) that started it all for this blog.  Actually, it was email updates to family & friends throughout the 2004 hurricane season that morphed into this blog with our first post on June 9, 2005 as Arlene became the first named storm of the season.  She formed just days into a season that would see 28 named storms (including Katrina & Wilma) and worry us in Florida as much as the 2004 season.

Sunday, July 15, 2018

9 Months Later....

After Irma, we left town on a 40 day RV trip to New England and watched the aftermath of Irma and the next month and a half of the 2017 hurricane season.  The devastation in the Caribbean was heartbreaking.

Beyond the physical and emotional suffering of the residents of Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands, we were especially saddened by the destruction of St. Croix where we had been in December of 2016 for our son's wedding at the (once) beautiful Caneel Bay Resort.




The pictures that came back from that part of the world are much better documented by the professionals.  All we can say is that after 10+ years of mostly non-events here in the Tampa Bay area (as documented on this blog over that time period), it was our turn in the barrel.  Fortunately some minor tree damage, a yard full of twigs and 2 days without power, were nothing to complain about.

And I won't.

What I will complain about is how slow it was and still is to help our fellow citizens in Puerto Rico.

We had planned to start our trip the day Irma hit, but had to delay our departure from Florida to Friday, September 15th.  We had heard that the traffic RETURNING to Florida on I-75 was heavy and that diesel fuel was short.  Along the way we certainly saw more traffic southbound than in our direction.  Diesel WAS spotty but available and the biggest impact seemed to be shredded roadside billboard and streams of power and tree cutting trucks headed to Florida.





Now, a month into the 2018 season, with prediction from below-normal to normal activity, we stay prepared and ready, should we be affected as little or more than Irma did last year.