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In the Wake of Irma

If you have a place in a popular vacation spot you can pretty much count on visitors coming to call.
As we all know, some visitors are far more congenial than others.  Some visitors are the type you can't wait to be rid of -- some visitors like Hurricane Irma.

At first it looked as though Irma would head up the center of the Florida peninsula.  Then it shifted to a path along the west coast and my concern for property escalated.  I watched the Venice weather -- mandatory evacuation of the island part, hurricane warning/watch, storm surge warning, flash flood warning, and, to top things off like a cherry on this disaster sundae, a tornado warning.   Water was shut off in Venice due to a broken main.  In the end, Irma downgraded and wobbled, leaving external damage but structures mostly intact.

My bougainvillea was damaged.  That thing is more or less a weed.  It has an ardent will to survive and no doubt will thrive once again.  The frangipani was uprooted.  I am not sure whether it is salvageable or not.  It is beautiful in full bloom, when I am not there to enjoy it.  Through the winter months it looks like a strange leafless shrub that Dr. Seuss might have drawn.  I am not entirely sure I want to salvage it.

I have yet to hear about anything inside related to the leak in the roof.  I will make a trip down to deal with that once hurricane season has settled down.  I surely hope it will soon!

Some pictures from the news:

Fishing pier at Sharky's showing how the gulf waters were sucked back out by the force of hurricane winds, preparation for the surge.  This is four miles from my place.  Surge was less than was predicted at first.

 A tree down in Venice, FL.   Not in my yard though.

Looks like palm trees just decided to take a nap in Sarasota!

Comments

  1. It's so sad. I hope your things are fine. We are still waiting to hear from some family. They have no power so their cells are probably dead so we hope to hear soon.

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  2. I have been to Miami and Orlando but never to Venice, Florida. Hope the contents of your house are not damaged.

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  3. I sure hope the ailing roof kept the water out. How agonizing it must have been to watch the coverage. My nephew finally found out his home in Bonita Springs did fine. No flooding nor structural damage. Also no power. Hope you get some good news soon on the insides.

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  4. Glad you seem to not have had more damage from Irma than you did. Hope any water leakage is minimal and easily corrected.

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  5. Wow. So much destruction. I'd love to be shell hunting at Sanibel right now but not much for camping out in mud-filled hotel rooms!

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  6. Very large very bad storm, as bad as it was, it is scary to think how much worse it almost was. Glad you escaped relatively unscathed, sorry so many others have not been so fortunate.

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  7. This has been a learning experience for everyone. Moving forward I hope we can find ways of improving things so it won't be as much a disaster when a storm rolls through.

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  8. Scary business ... but it sounds like your place in paradise has weathered the storm!

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  9. Phew, good to hear your place came through reasonably unscathed. It's truly dreadful to see the devastation in Florida, but especially in the small Caribbean islands.

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  10. It seems like for a lot of west coasters in Florida, bad was better than the worse experienced by those on the islands and the keys. Glad to hear your place survived.

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  11. All of our family members and close friends seemed to come out of the horror unscathed. I was wondering how your home survived and your news is great. However I haven't heard the news of a nephew who lives in the Keys. They said 90% of homes there were destroyed.

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