Pheeeew!
Hi all, thank god the power is back, there is appox 1.5 million residents in my local area with out power, how we got ours back is a miracle, but I am holding my breath.
The storm was down graded to a catagory (2) from its original catagory (4) status, thank god that was the case other wise it would have been catastrophic. You see the major problem with the storm was that is was only moving 4mph whis is unhead of meaning we had sustained winds of 90-115mph from over 24 hours, this is unimaginable because those forces sustained for such a long period of time causes amazing proportions of damage.
We were very scared at some points since we were out of power for 48 hours, they say some will not have power back for 7+ days or more. Unfortunately me home sustained moderate damage, nothing structural really, but small things like lighting on the exterior of house is completely mangled, all of my homes landscaping is destroyed, nearly every tree has been either stripped of its branches uprooted of just snaped.
I am guestimating some where roughly between 5-10k dollars in damage that I can see so far, the good news is we are all ok, a bit shaken but alright, if this storm had come as its originally predicted catagoy 4 I feel there would have been grave danger, winds of up to 160mph from some 48 hours non stop would have been un-imaginable destruction.
There are homes in my neighborhood that took sever damage, screen eclosures in their back yards are now twisted metal, one houses screen just vanished, completely dissapeared, its no where to be found. There are houses in my comunity that some peoples hurricane shutters started flying off in the middle of the storm, we had 100mph winds.
There was one home where is front lawn has some one hurricane shutters stuck into the ground from some one elses home, what I mean is, they launched off some ones windows, flew 100mph through the air and then slammed into the lawn on a 45 degree angle and were pushed into the ground.
On the highway there is a sink hole the size of a freight truck that opened up, its basically a complete dissaster and the damage was far worse a bit north of me. All seemed fine at one point and I didnt think we were going to get hit so hard, then the power went down and the winds started picking up, even with the shutters the house was howling, the shutters rattling and the roof making some very scary noises.
Like I said thank god this storm lost some of its power before it slammed into us or I couldnt even imagine what kind of devestation it would have caused.
Me and my familly are all safe and thats the good thing, we had some scary moments, but safety is most important, next good thing is all my studio is safe lol
Me and my wife tried to go out for a bit this afternoon and we took many pictures with the digital camera, we have some crazy shots, I will post them tomorrow when she uploads them. For now I am just happy the power is back, because 48 hours with no electricity is not fun, plus the radio was saying the water in our town was unsafe for consumption and we would have to boil.
There are many towns with out water and 1.5 million still with out electric, it will be days before our state recovers. Cities like ft. lauder down south got very lucky being they had no major issues, no water or power and very little damage, infact the news just showed miami night clubs open for buisiness, ocean ave is kicking like a normal weekend eve.
Right before the storm was a wild scramble, people were freaking out trying to get supplies, gas, lumber, food, ice, it was just chaotic.
The winds are still blowing here a bit and its still raining, there is mass flooding and still a few bands left from the storm.
Whats really awefull is, 1st norhtern florida was rocked by charlie not 3 weeks ago, some just got power back litteraly days ago, and then they get slammed by frances, and NOW we have hurricane Ivan off the cost roughly 2400 miles away, I pray this does not come here, thats another catagory 4 hurricane, which means wind speed of roughly 150 mph.
They are saying never in history has florida ever been slammed like this with this amount of hurricane so close in location.
Infact I am not taking down the shutters from the 2nd story of my home untill next week when I know this other hurricane is not going to reach us.
Anyways I am just letting you guys know I am ok, and I wanna thank you all for your support, its comforting knowing we have a little familly here on the net that spans accross the globe.
Besure to check back in the next day or so, to see a few of these photo's I will post from our local area, the size of some of these tree's that are in the roads are unbelievable, and the amount of power lines down is frightening.
In the middle of the storm there were these huge blue explosions every so often, we were freaking out trying to figure out what they were, it turns out these giant explosions were electrical transoformers exploding, scary stuff.
Well ill post again soon, hopefully the power being on is not a short term thing and they fixed our area.
Cheers!
