Florida and Hurricane Irma
I know we have a few members that are in Florida. I am one of them. This hurricane is big and she's nasty. All of Florida will be affected and the devastation will be statewide. I'm going to have to move all my stamps to a safe area. Hoping I can put all in enough bins to keep them safe. The shutters will be finished on Friday, we have enough food and water for a few days. I'm hoping we will have a house in tact on Monday.
To all the members in Florida, please be safe. Let us know how things are going. I know we will loose power shortly after things start spinning around, so when you get power back on and you have a moment, check in, okay?
To all my wonderful customers, your orders have been placed in the Post Office a day early. If you do order from a seller in Florida, please be a little patient with the delivery.
Maybe I'm overly concerned, but the not knowing is making all of us a little crazy.
To all the members in Florida, please be safe. Let us know how things are going. I know we will loose power shortly after things start spinning around, so when you get power back on and you have a moment, check in, okay?
To all my wonderful customers, your orders have been placed in the Post Office a day early. If you do order from a seller in Florida, please be a little patient with the delivery.
Maybe I'm overly concerned, but the not knowing is making all of us a little crazy.
Comments
I was able to get D cell batteries today. That in itself was a major feat as nobody has had D cells. That means we will have a form of communication with the radio. I have only a couple of bins for all the stamps so I have to choose wisely. The others I'll be bagging up and putting in the safe room. I now have so much stuff in the safe room I wonder where Rich and I will be stuffed? All is good, somethings will have to come out. I have all day tomorrow to really think and plan correctly.
Did I say this storm has me rather concerned? Like almost but not quite scared poop-less? Having the eye be about 10 miles from me and knowing what I do about hurricanes makes me quiver. Why can't she just turn out to sea?
Last night the last report I saw the mb had moved up to 919 from 914. This morning they are at 925! This is a very good sign. I've learned through the years to watch the millibar rating. If it is low such as 914, that means it is a strong well formed storm. So the higher the better. And as we see she is now a Cat 4. She's not as tightly formed this morning. This doesn't mean we are out of danger, just means we might be able to keep our roof.
But wait --- dang Jose is now picking up, forming well and going to smack the devil out of the Islands! What the heck? They don't even have a chance to pick up from Irma and the Islands have to contend with Jose! Will we have the same? Don't know, just need to finish my to do list for the day and then watch for the fun to begin early tomorrow morning into the evening.
We have about an hours' worth of work in the yard still to be done. It just got too hot for either of us to continue this morning. We put in about three hours each, that's six hours of hard labor. We rest and then finish up tonight. In the meantime, the dishwasher was run, the laundry is all done, pre-storm pictures have been taken, and the majority of the stamps are safe. I just had to have a sad chat with the few that couldn't make it into bins to explain they are on their own and be safe!
The remaining stamps are in 3 inch notebooks. I just don't have that big of a bag. The way the storm has turned just a bit to the West we'll be getting the outter bands. You know, the bands with all tornadoes! I'm hoping all will be okay. We'll just hunker down and wait this out.
Seal them in plastic wrap.
I'm going to see how the storm will react in a few hours. We are outside the magical cone, but with the storm being as big as it is, we will still be impacted with the outer bands of destruction.
Meantime, by brother-in-law, in Ft Myers has been handed the evacuation notice. His house is stilted up 16 ft with about another foot or two before it hits the bottom of his house. Needless to say, he's not leaving. I think he'll be okay. Told him I will be in touch with him tomorrow and everyday until it's all over.
Good luck to you and your brother-in-law. Stay safe.
I'm sure you will, as soon as you have power and internet, but do please check in when you can.
I hope the damage in your area has been minimal.
Fingers crossed (and prayers said).
Oh but wait, it gets even better! While I'm out doing the yard cleaning thing, I'm apparently allergic to something as I have a huge welt across the back of one knee! How extremely annoying.
So we go to walk Reena in the somewhat cool of the evening, 8PM, and the first thing I notice, we have street lights. Look one way and the neighbors have lights, look the other and they have lights. Rich goes in and flips the circuit breaker and ta-da, we have lights! Crank up that AC, baby. But, we live on a circle, only the outer part of the circle has power, not the inner circle. Cool, now we can jump on the internet let everybody know we are okay and see the news. NOT!!!! Cable didn't come back until noon today, while I was at work.
Although we didn't get the eye, we got the really bad side with all the tornadoes. Really, a lot of tornadoes. Many of them sheared off quickly but if you were so bored you were watching the weather channel, you saw the Dopler and how everybody was continuing to say tornado here, tornado there, tornado everywhere. We all were tired of hearing Jim Cantore say we were under a tornado warning in our area.
And the clean up will continue. We are very blessed that there wasn't more damage, a few trees snapped, split, and just plain fell over. Leaves all over the place, pine needles all over. Wooden fences falling over. But not that many house were damaged. I've only heard a couple were damaged by a tree falling.
Paul my brother-in-law in Fort Meyers is with water. His drain field is 10 feet above ground. He placed his golf cart on top of the drain field and the water was over the floorboard. His house is 16 feet above ground and he has 5 steps on the stairs clear of water. So the neighbors kayak back and forth. He faired well, about three trees fell and no structure damage. He also doesn't have power. About 50% of Florida is without power.
The Keys are a total mess. Everyone is being stopped in Islamorada which is the upper Keys. You can not go any further. Boats are all over the place, on the roads, on houses, IN houses. It will take some time to get that fixed.
So that's my tale, I'm safe and it was a ride I do not want to go through again! Hurricanes are not supposed to last 24 hours, they are supposed to be in and out, the end. But this one was so big we felt every powerful blow.
Although it's going to be a long slog, I hope things get easier and easier each and every day.
Good luck!
Now it's back to stampin'. Amazing how much time we put into a hobby when the hobby is taken away from us. All was boxed up in the safe room. The boxes are now back on their shelves ready for the orders to be packed up. Of course the albums just went on the shelf any willy-nilly way so that will be a joke on me when I go to look for something! Oh the things we do to ourselves.
What did it sound - and feel - like when you got hit? Were you ever afraid your house might not make it? How did your stamps fare?