Hurricane Frances
In early September 2004, she stopped at our doorstep and blew herself down from a category 4 (145 mph wind) to a category 2 (100 mph wind), which meant downed trees and power outages, not ripped-off roofs and demolished buildings. We thank God for that.
Isn't she beautiful from space? Here she is before blowing over Puerto Rico.
About a third of Floridians got out of town, after prepping their houses: all loose items come in the house, windows boarded, breakers flipped, fridges turned cold as possible, furniture moved away from windows, and cars parked anywhere but under a tree.
Many homes looked exactly like this after the storm, but with tree branches everywhere. I'd say every third home had some damage: a few or many shingles missing, trees down, a mailbox twisted around, or a fence section down. Most people lost perishable food. A few people strangely never lost power, water, or phone. Some did get big holes in their roofs.
This is actually a very important post-hurricane picture, because all of the pictures you see in the news (and here, for that matter) are of destruction. REALLY, MANY homes were spared.
We stayed at the church, which I like to call our fortress, because I felt very safe. While the winds measured 100 mph on the coast at 30 feet high, we were down on the ground, several miles inland. Besides, who doesn't feel safe in a church?
Scott Lowe (grew up near Grandma and Grandpa Eyring) and Dave seal the cracks in the doors with duct tape. We could see the wind sucking at the doors, and water leaked under them and under the roof. This picture was taken before the power went out.
During the storm, the trees swayed and the cars got a power wash. The trees that fell tended to be non-native kinds. Palms and these slash pines weathered quite well.
After 2 nights in the church, Hurricane Frances had mostly passed us, though too slowly for our taste. Dark counties in the map here received federal disaster aid (airlifts of food, water, and ice). The hurricane's path is a grey line from lower right to upper left. The eye hit our stake center 30 miles north of us. The light grey shape covers the areas receiving hurricane force wind.
If Florida is a giant turtle head, reaching out to take a bite of Cuba, then Lake Okeechobee is the eye, West Palm Beach is the top of the head, and Tampa Bay and Ft. Myers-Punta Gorda are the 2 mouths. So Frances hit us on the head, and Charley crossed the other way, hitting us in the mouth. If Ivan hits us in the nose and goes up the center, we'll be one punch-drunk turtle!
Here is the door to the church, plastered with fine debris. All the doors eventually got too dirty to see much through them, and no one wanted to go out and wipe them off.
This stoplight is a little worse for the wear. We saw stoplights that were turned backwards, drooping very low, in pieces, or at one intersection, both were completely missing. It's kind of tricky to play "four way stop" when the intersecting roads have a total of 20 lanes.
This is right behind our condo.
Two poles snapped and are hanging precariously over some houses (not shown on the left.) It's been a week, and they're still "hanging in there". I'm sure they've shut off the power to these, and that would explain why that neighborhood is still using generators.
The power company is working as fast as it can, day and night, to restore power. Many utility crews from other states have come to help too. We were very blessed to have our power restored after only 3 days, and having friends offer us their homes, showers, and ice.
Fortunately it was quite cloudy for 2 days following the storm, which kept it much cooler.
Here is the tree in front of our usual parking space. It's a beautiful Norfolk Island pine that grows several stories high, and has feathery, symmetrical limbs. Not native to the area, and not tough enough for a hurricane, obviously. This wasn't the only Norfolk to get it's branches stripped off.
Another unusual thing after the hurricane is the smell. It smells like autumn and rotting leaves and freshly cut grass, because of all the broken plants and trees. And our house was quite musty-smelling when we came home.
This light is supposed to be covered by a white globe, but it somehow got stripped off without breaking the bulb. Many stop signs were lying on the ground, all the red and white crossbars at the railroad and bridge crossings were missing, and many fiberglass signs were smashed.
(We were glad to see a sign for the Swimsuit Warehouse come down, since it had an ugly woman in a bikini painted on it.)
Can you see all the "tennis balls" on the ground below this tree in our neighborhood? They're immature oranges, and they were blown off the tree in the hurricane. This tree is typical: it lost most, but not all, of it's fruit.
The officials say (I think) that the orange crop has been severely damaged, and that the grapefruit crop is mostly destroyed. America gets 75% of it's grapefruit from Florida.
Dave and Liz Robertson
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