Irma

Having lived in Florida my whole life, we’ve had our share of hurricane scares and bad weather, but this year’s Hurricane Irma was by far the scariest so far.

I remember the summer of 2004 when we lost power for a several days and until this year, that has been the most we’d been affected.

The first hurricane I remember well was Andrew in the 90’s. I was 8 or 9 years old, but remember well seeing the devastation it caused to South Florida on the news.

Seeing this comparison posted all over Facebook had me scared for sure…

Everyone around us started to prepare pretty early. Generators, water, and food were almost impossible to find even days out from the expected land fall. My parents had to drive up to almost Atlanta to find a generator in stock.

As Irma got closer to us and continued to strengthen and shift, it looked like it was going to make landfall almost right over our county. We were all really nervous and I don’t ever remember feeling like that about a hurricane before.

The evacuation orders started to come out…starting with voluntary for those closer to the coast, then mandatory for the coast and mobile homes, then MANDATORY in all capital letters with no exclusions…seeing that made it even more scary.

There were even emergency trucks with loud speakers driving down the roads telling people to leave and evacuate. It was super eerie to see them and hear them down our road. Our family in North Georgia were all glued to the weather reports and like us, really nervous that it looked like there was a big chance for us to see major damage. They were begging us to evacuate and head up there. The roads, even days before, though, were packed and there really would have been no way for us to get out of the state. Gas was completely sold out everywhere and people all down the interstate were running out. Because the interstate and major highways were so crowded, people were taking back roads, and every small town around us was so crowded and congested. It was crazy to see so much traffic.

We decided to ride the storm out at my parents house. Our house is brick, so we weren’t worried about it being safe, we just wanted to be together. We’d planned meals that we could cook using the generator and grill and momma made a few things ahead of time so we’d be set for living a couple days without power.

Of course there were snacks. Lots and lots of snacks. We laughed so hard over all the hurricane memes on facebook that were so funny.

Sorry for the cuss word- but this one was good, too. It was exactly what we were all feeling.

The night the storm was projected to hit, I felt safest in the living room at mom & dad’s, so we blew up an air mattress and DW & I slept on it with the kids around us in their sleeping bags. I definitely didn’t want them sleeping in another room away from us. The worst part was that the hardest wind and rain that we were going to get was supposed to hit us in the middle of the night. Everything is always scarier at night. When the wind and rain started it was pretty scary. It was black dark outside and all we could hear was the wind howling, rain coming down, and limbs and debris being blown into the side of the house and windows. When the sun came up that morning, it was still a little windy and rainy, and we couldn’t believe the yard. It was like a lake! There were limbs down everywhere, the steps to the zip line were almost under water, and it had even blown a squirrel into the side of the house and he was a curled up on the porch.

The sky was hazy and “hurricane-like” and it was still a light soaking rain for most of the day. We went over to our house as soon as we knew the worst winds were gone to assess the damage there. The sunroom had flooded a little, but would have been much worse if we hadn’t of sand-bagged it before. There were limbs down all over the yard. We rode down to the construction shop and saw half of the tin from the roof rolled up and blown in the middle of the road. There was also a power line snapped and lying across the road.

We were out of power for 3 days. That was how long we were out back in ‘04, but we didn’t have kids then. Having kids is a total game changer – and not for the easier when having no power is concerned. Ha. School was cancelled for a few days, and nobody even in town had power. By the second day at home with no power, mom & I decided to take a field trip up to Wal-mart and kill some time there. Ha.  

We looked like people who hadn’t had a proper shower or enough power to do something to their hair in days, but it was nice to walk around in the A/C. We had the generators that ran lights and fans at night, so that was a huge plus, and more than a lot of people had.

All in all we were super spared where damage was concerned. We hate so bad the devastating damage it did in the Caribbean, Puerto Rico, and the Keys. But it is always so heart warming to see how people respond to needs and how disasters almost always bring unity.

It was a memorable hurricane, though, and one I’m sure our kids won’t forget.

~amw~