Hurricanes suck!

[Rocnerd]

Well, Wilma went through and whacked us good.  But the family is fine and amazingly enough we still have power and water.  Most of Broward County is without, so I consider us very lucky indeed.  We lost a lot of trees, some of our roof, and our fence.  The roads were impassable yesterday, but the crews have been out working in 12 hour shifts to clear them and get everything back to normal asap.  I was going to take some pictures of the damage for everyone, but went to get the digital camera and discovered that it is MIA.  
So, its now clean up time.  Hope anyone else here that lives in S. Florida is OK.  A lot of people took this storm for granted since the weather center kept saying it would be a level 1 when it hit us.  Well, 120 mph wind is no level 1.  That is scary.  Well, no work for at least a couple days so that is one benefit.  I was supposed to go see Jethro Tull tonight, but since they don't have power at the venue it has been rescheduled.  OK, enough rambling.  Take care all.

[Richard S]

Glad you made it through, Rocnerd.  Have Gator, K-Man, and RJ checked in yet?

[DDGator]

We survived just fine.   A bit of a blow... I slept through it and was at work by 11am on Monday.

K-Man is fine -- slight amount of damage at his place.

The good news is that fall has arrived right behind Wilma.  It was 53 degrees this morning on the way to work!  

Rocnerd--good luck with the clean-up.  I have several friends in South Florida  that are still without power and water.  Ft. Lauderdale is a mess, for sure.  

[sslater]

I have relatives in the Pompano Beach area.  There were pictures in the local paper of uprooted trees in Pompano.  Must be lots of phone & power lines down because I haven't been able to raise them on land line, cell phone, or e-mail.  

[Rocnerd]

Thanks for the well wishes.  I am finally back at work and thankfull for that since it means all the heavy lifting type stuff is over.  I was very pleasantly surprised how the neighborhood got together and helped each other.  My office is in Boca Raton and it doesn't look half as bad as a little further south.  Things are getting back to normal though.  It could have been much worse.

[R9SCarry]

Hey Roc' - missed this thread earlier.  Glad and relieved you got thru almost OK - many of us watched the whole thing develop and worried how y'all down there were coping.

Let's hope this ''three years in one'' storm/hurricane season is over and that next year will be kinder.

[Rocnerd]

Let's hope this ''three years in one'' storm/hurricane season is over and that next year will be kinder.

Amen to that.  I am sure FlyandScuba could use it more than me, being hit by two in as many years.  

I think one of the saddest things is all the nice trees that will not be there anymore.  The town had filled out nice, but now there isn't a single one without damage and many were simply knocked down.  Hopefully they can stand some back up.  

I went into the crawl space last night after work to check how the roof was holding up since it was pouring all day yesterday.  Glad to report no leaks as of yet so looks like my patch job is holding for now.  We had the insurance guy out yesterday so we will see what we'll get, but paying the deductible is certainly going to put the two Aks I have on layaway out of reach longer than I would like.  Priorities are priorities though.  

sslater - have been able to get in touch with your relatives?  Pompano got whacked pretty good and all their power lines are above ground, so they may still be without power there.  Hope all is well with them.

Thanks again for the well wishes.  

[Aglifter]

Anyone know how hard it is to get materials, etc in the Tampa area -- I'm supposed to have a store built in Madeira Beach -- crew's leaving tomorrow.

[Rocnerd]

Not sure about Tampa, but I hear that roof tiles(the cement barrel ones not the tar shingles) are scarce at the moment.  I would imagine anyone who does roofs, screen rooms, fences, and landscaping will be quite busy.  Perhaps DDGator can give you some better info since I believe he lives in the Tampa area.  
Good luck.

[sslater]

Rocnerd,
Their power is still out, nine days and counting.  Power Co. originally projected restoration by 22-Nov, but that's been moved up to 9-Nov.  Out of 150 units in the building, only 5 have phone service.  My sister-in-law is one of them.  
Now they're saying the water service may go out.  If that happens, my sister-in-law will be looking for a hotel room.

Their place came thru with almost no damage, but a couple of units on higher floors were completely gutted.  Also, the cooling towers were destroyed.  So the A/C won't work until those are replaced.  

Snow in Michigan doesn't seem so terrible...

[Rocnerd]

Well, at least i has cooled off a little from what is was.  The highs have been in the upper 70s to low 80s with a lot less humidity.  Would have been much worse in the middle of Aug.  with 95 degrees and 98% humidity.  I'll keep my fingers crossed that she gets everything back on as soon as possible.

[EdMan]

Hurricanes do suck and blow at the same time. I'm glad I never had to be in one. I had a close call when I was in the Air Force and stationed at Keesler AFB in Biloxi. I got shipped over to Clark AFB in the Phillipines just before Camille hit back in the late 60s. I'm glad to hear you all made it.

Ed