Hurricane Wilma and the aftermath thereof...
I'm back from internet silence, and here's your update, written from methuse's office. I have some pictures I took during and after the storm, and I guess I'll post them where they belong in here, once they're a reasonable size.
Just Before...
I went up to visit mitejen because it was her birthday, and had a great weekend with her, her boy, and our friend onceupon. There was much girliness and I bought turqoise eyelashes and wore them to The Castle, which was really fun. The Castle is probably one of the longest-lasting goth clubs in Florida, if not the entire country. Their courtyard is neet, and the whole building is very spooky and old-looking.
We also all got to see Mirrormask, the Neil Gaiman-written, Dave McKean-directed, Jim Henson Studios-...studioed movie. It was fantastic. They set out to make a new movie like the Labryinth and the Dark Crystal for the new generation of future goth kids, and it really is well done. I was worried that the direction would be really pretty, but not polished, but I found it really smooth and natural-feeling.
On my way home, I passed several convoys of tree-trucks, electric trucks, and military vehicles. It was quite sobering, but really encouraging that people were mobilizing already, at least 12 hours before the storm was scheduled to hit. Tornadoes followed me down from Orlando to Fort Lauderdale, according to the radio announcements.
When I got home, I helped Brent get the last of the shutters in place, and started doing laundry. I was exhausted from an exciting weekend and being still a little bit sick and the long drive, so I decided to take my chances and not actually finish sewing my costume for the big ICC convention. It's not a complicated costume, just straight seams, but my hands were shaking and I didn't want to damage the delicate fabric.
Wilma Morning - The Storm
I woke up extra early, mostly because I was nervous and had a list of things in my head that I had to get done before the power went out. I switched out the laundry, got some more dishes done, and listened to the rain and wind start howling.
About halfway through the second load of laundry, the power went out. Bad luck, two machines full of wet clothes.
The house is always really dark when the shutters are down, but we left the shutters off of the back sliding glass door, so we'd have a second exit in case of fire, and we could also look out and see how the damage was.
It got really hot with the air conditioning off, and we tried to sleep as much as we could, but I kept getting up and wandering around, checking on strange sounds and looking out the window.
I noticed at one point that the curtains were moving. That was pretty creepy. The sound of this storm was pretty loud, and sounded sort of like the rumble of a nearby highway with big trucks going by. Gusts sounded like furious howls, and sometimes high-pitched whistles through the shutters.
I don't remember exactly when, because of trying to sleep, and having a bad sequential memory, but I think it was during the back side of the storm that three of our shutters started flapping around. They're the old style, the kind that are used as awnings when they're not shuttering, and I don't think they make them anymore, so ours are in a fairly sad state, with worn-out parts and jury-rigs to keep them in place.
When I say flapping around, i mean that they were being forcefully picked up as high as they would go on their hinge, and then slammed down onto the outside of the house. It really started to sound like we were on a boat at sea, because there were so many sounds coming from all directions, that I couldn't distinguish the falling branch sound from shutter flap sound. I do remember hearing the front door light shattering though.
We were ok with the flapping shutters until we realized the giant one in the front that covers the huge picture window (with jalosie-slatted glass bottom panels that won't keep hurricane rain out) had jerked itself completely loose from the tie-down. Brent and I ventured outside to see if we could secure it safely, and found that it had been bent in such a way that it can't be secured anymore. I remembered that the cement planters that were nearby are really REALLY heavy, so while I held the shutter down with my entire body strength, Brent dragged them in front of the big shutter. The poor man's back is still hurting.
The wind that we encountered while we were out there was awesome, in the truest definition of the word. It was like being the inflatable clown punching bag and being punched from different sides, and almost getting knocked down before getting hit from the other direction.
I admit that there is a surprisingly large part of me that wanted to stay outside and scream at the storm, but I dragged myself inside, out of reach of the flying debris.
By this time, the temperature had dropped about 20 degrees, and it was cold out there.
The big shutter stayed put for the rest of the storm, but the one over our front door flew up and bent back over the edge of the roof. That was a disturbing sound. When I went to check on it, I realized that water and air was being forced under our door, and had started pooling. It took 5 or 6 towels, but we got the water up and I tamped them down against the door to keep it watertight.
After that, we waited for another hour or so for the storm to start dying down. I could already hear cars moving around at that point, and then the sirens started...
Wilma Afternoon - Damage and Cleanup
We ended up losing two of our trees, and took some heavy damage to two of our big hibiscus bushes. They fell over. They didn't quite break, but they were on their sides and had been dragged a little ways. One of the trees snapped off right at the bottom of the trunk, and the other lost nearly all of its branches, and will have to be cut down because it's just too cracked and split to survive.
The bottlebrush tree in the backyard lost a LOT of its pretty weeping branches, but survived really well. The house helped shelter it a little, but the part that sticks up over the roof looks like someone took a bite out of it.
The shed got picked up and wrapped around the air conditioning unit nearby... oddly the contents didn't move much from where they were, but the shed is totally destroyed and we aren't sure how to really dispose of it now. We'll probably have to cut it up into smaller pieces. I took lots of photos of the shed.
The backyard neighbor's roof came apart in the storm, too, and their shingles were all over the neighborhood. We had pretty big stack of them once we gathered them all up.
It was about 3pm by now, and we spent the rest of the day dragging what debris we could out to the side of the road (the "burm" as joe_burns loves to call it), and one of our neighbors used his chainsaw to help us get the big chunks into draggable pieces.
longawayy and c_star came by to check on us, which was very nice, and we traded stories. Later on, lyria, cellshade, and irksnapple came by, as well as a few of my friends from work, and we all hung out while people used our gas burner to cook their perishables. I finally got all the clothes wrung out and hung them on the bottlebrush tree, which is an excellent clothesline in a pinch. It was really nice to have the company of friends after just the two of us being alone inside our little bunker while it was scary outside.
Andy and Patty, two of the aforementioned friends I made through work, decided they wanted to saw up the remaining branches and treetrunk left behind when our neighbor's chainsaw broke. Our little old neighbor lady to the other side saw them merrily sawing away and brought them her axe, and together, Andy and Patty laid waste to the trees. There are lots of pictures!
In Conclusion
We still don't have power. My office still doesn't have power. The goddamned county jail doesn't have power either, which is disturbing. Brent's office obviously does, and they're very nice to let me come in and use their connection.
We do have water, water heater, and the stove, so we're all set for hot showers, boiling water and cooking. We just have no A/C or refrigeration or washer/dryer. If we don't have power back by Wednesday, we're going to borrow Brent's parents' generator, but until then, we're roughing it. It's not so bad. I just wish the beautiful sunny cloudless weather we had right after the storm had held, now it's hot, humid, and rainy again... *sigh*
I'll write more about how we got to Phoenix and how ICC went another time. I just wanted to get that written down and let everyone know I'm ok, Brent's ok, and our house is still sound and the roof is probably not leaking... Must remember to go up in the attic and check on that.
Just Before...
I went up to visit mitejen because it was her birthday, and had a great weekend with her, her boy, and our friend onceupon. There was much girliness and I bought turqoise eyelashes and wore them to The Castle, which was really fun. The Castle is probably one of the longest-lasting goth clubs in Florida, if not the entire country. Their courtyard is neet, and the whole building is very spooky and old-looking.
We also all got to see Mirrormask, the Neil Gaiman-written, Dave McKean-directed, Jim Henson Studios-...studioed movie. It was fantastic. They set out to make a new movie like the Labryinth and the Dark Crystal for the new generation of future goth kids, and it really is well done. I was worried that the direction would be really pretty, but not polished, but I found it really smooth and natural-feeling.
On my way home, I passed several convoys of tree-trucks, electric trucks, and military vehicles. It was quite sobering, but really encouraging that people were mobilizing already, at least 12 hours before the storm was scheduled to hit. Tornadoes followed me down from Orlando to Fort Lauderdale, according to the radio announcements.
When I got home, I helped Brent get the last of the shutters in place, and started doing laundry. I was exhausted from an exciting weekend and being still a little bit sick and the long drive, so I decided to take my chances and not actually finish sewing my costume for the big ICC convention. It's not a complicated costume, just straight seams, but my hands were shaking and I didn't want to damage the delicate fabric.
Wilma Morning - The Storm
I woke up extra early, mostly because I was nervous and had a list of things in my head that I had to get done before the power went out. I switched out the laundry, got some more dishes done, and listened to the rain and wind start howling.
About halfway through the second load of laundry, the power went out. Bad luck, two machines full of wet clothes.
The house is always really dark when the shutters are down, but we left the shutters off of the back sliding glass door, so we'd have a second exit in case of fire, and we could also look out and see how the damage was.
It got really hot with the air conditioning off, and we tried to sleep as much as we could, but I kept getting up and wandering around, checking on strange sounds and looking out the window.
I noticed at one point that the curtains were moving. That was pretty creepy. The sound of this storm was pretty loud, and sounded sort of like the rumble of a nearby highway with big trucks going by. Gusts sounded like furious howls, and sometimes high-pitched whistles through the shutters.
I don't remember exactly when, because of trying to sleep, and having a bad sequential memory, but I think it was during the back side of the storm that three of our shutters started flapping around. They're the old style, the kind that are used as awnings when they're not shuttering, and I don't think they make them anymore, so ours are in a fairly sad state, with worn-out parts and jury-rigs to keep them in place.
When I say flapping around, i mean that they were being forcefully picked up as high as they would go on their hinge, and then slammed down onto the outside of the house. It really started to sound like we were on a boat at sea, because there were so many sounds coming from all directions, that I couldn't distinguish the falling branch sound from shutter flap sound. I do remember hearing the front door light shattering though.
We were ok with the flapping shutters until we realized the giant one in the front that covers the huge picture window (with jalosie-slatted glass bottom panels that won't keep hurricane rain out) had jerked itself completely loose from the tie-down. Brent and I ventured outside to see if we could secure it safely, and found that it had been bent in such a way that it can't be secured anymore. I remembered that the cement planters that were nearby are really REALLY heavy, so while I held the shutter down with my entire body strength, Brent dragged them in front of the big shutter. The poor man's back is still hurting.
The wind that we encountered while we were out there was awesome, in the truest definition of the word. It was like being the inflatable clown punching bag and being punched from different sides, and almost getting knocked down before getting hit from the other direction.
I admit that there is a surprisingly large part of me that wanted to stay outside and scream at the storm, but I dragged myself inside, out of reach of the flying debris.
By this time, the temperature had dropped about 20 degrees, and it was cold out there.
The big shutter stayed put for the rest of the storm, but the one over our front door flew up and bent back over the edge of the roof. That was a disturbing sound. When I went to check on it, I realized that water and air was being forced under our door, and had started pooling. It took 5 or 6 towels, but we got the water up and I tamped them down against the door to keep it watertight.
After that, we waited for another hour or so for the storm to start dying down. I could already hear cars moving around at that point, and then the sirens started...
Wilma Afternoon - Damage and Cleanup
We ended up losing two of our trees, and took some heavy damage to two of our big hibiscus bushes. They fell over. They didn't quite break, but they were on their sides and had been dragged a little ways. One of the trees snapped off right at the bottom of the trunk, and the other lost nearly all of its branches, and will have to be cut down because it's just too cracked and split to survive.
The bottlebrush tree in the backyard lost a LOT of its pretty weeping branches, but survived really well. The house helped shelter it a little, but the part that sticks up over the roof looks like someone took a bite out of it.
The shed got picked up and wrapped around the air conditioning unit nearby... oddly the contents didn't move much from where they were, but the shed is totally destroyed and we aren't sure how to really dispose of it now. We'll probably have to cut it up into smaller pieces. I took lots of photos of the shed.
The backyard neighbor's roof came apart in the storm, too, and their shingles were all over the neighborhood. We had pretty big stack of them once we gathered them all up.
It was about 3pm by now, and we spent the rest of the day dragging what debris we could out to the side of the road (the "burm" as joe_burns loves to call it), and one of our neighbors used his chainsaw to help us get the big chunks into draggable pieces.
longawayy and c_star came by to check on us, which was very nice, and we traded stories. Later on, lyria, cellshade, and irksnapple came by, as well as a few of my friends from work, and we all hung out while people used our gas burner to cook their perishables. I finally got all the clothes wrung out and hung them on the bottlebrush tree, which is an excellent clothesline in a pinch. It was really nice to have the company of friends after just the two of us being alone inside our little bunker while it was scary outside.
Andy and Patty, two of the aforementioned friends I made through work, decided they wanted to saw up the remaining branches and treetrunk left behind when our neighbor's chainsaw broke. Our little old neighbor lady to the other side saw them merrily sawing away and brought them her axe, and together, Andy and Patty laid waste to the trees. There are lots of pictures!
In Conclusion
We still don't have power. My office still doesn't have power. The goddamned county jail doesn't have power either, which is disturbing. Brent's office obviously does, and they're very nice to let me come in and use their connection.
We do have water, water heater, and the stove, so we're all set for hot showers, boiling water and cooking. We just have no A/C or refrigeration or washer/dryer. If we don't have power back by Wednesday, we're going to borrow Brent's parents' generator, but until then, we're roughing it. It's not so bad. I just wish the beautiful sunny cloudless weather we had right after the storm had held, now it's hot, humid, and rainy again... *sigh*
I'll write more about how we got to Phoenix and how ICC went another time. I just wanted to get that written down and let everyone know I'm ok, Brent's ok, and our house is still sound and the roof is probably not leaking... Must remember to go up in the attic and check on that.