Here we go again.

Just got off the phone with my mother who lives near Daytona Beach. She is leaving the area either tonight or tomorrow in anticipation of Hurricane Frances. I just checked the National Weather Service site, and the hurricane was predicted to come ashore in Volusia County (where mom lives), but they have now changed it to Brevard County (not that far away). Of course, after Charley, we have seen that the forecasters could be off the mark.

Nevertheless, this is dangerous and powerful storm. Mom said that NO ONE in her neighborhood is staying (there are no mandatory evacuations...YET). She didn't want to be the only one to stick around. Charley scared her pretty badly.

She and my aunt are headed north--how far she doesn't know (although she did say something about heading for NJ--where we have relatives). She thinks my one uncle is (foolishly) going to stick it out. She wasn't sure what my other uncle was going to do.

So, I'd appreciate prayers not only for my family, but all the folks who may be in Frances' path. Many people are still trying to recover from Charley and another hurricane is the LAST thing they need.

I'm very worried.

Yeah, sounds like they're gonna get nailed again. I heard from my brother yesterday and he said he and my parents, who all live in the Daytona area, are planning on bailing out tomorrow .... not sure where they'll bail out to. They haven't even had the insurance adjuster out to their places yet to quantify their claims of damage from hurricane Charley and it looks like they have Frances bearing down on them. Maybe Frances will blow away all the debris that they've piled up and that hasn't been picked up and hauled away yet.

Dan

I fully understand. My daughter left Port St. Lucie at 10am and it took her till 7Pm to go 4 hours, but at least she has made it to Georgia and will be here in Virginia early tomorrow morning. My prayers are with all those that left and of course stayed. This is a scary one.

Just how much can one state handle ...My prayers are with all of those that are in Florida...
Ruthie

My mother foolishly changed her mind and decided to ride the storm out. Most of the family has been on the phone with her begging her to leave to no avail. Stubborn woman.

Even though the storm has weakened a bit overnight, it is still very powerful.

My prayers to all those in the path of the storm.

No one wants to hear the "H" word. Hurricanes are very interesting when you escape with no injuries and no property damage. When they threaten you well-being, that's another story. It's one of those, "You can run but you can't hide things."

Our thoughts and prayers go out to those in the effected area. Many have gone through enough devastion to last a lifetime in the last storm.

Bob

I have cousins in Boynton Beach and West Palm and some friends in the path of "Frances". My prayers are for all the people in Florida. I know it's weakened, but it could strenghten again, change paths, and who knows what.

Joyce

Thankfully, my mom wised up and is on her way out of Florida right now. I'm not sure who or what convinced her to finally go, but I'm glad she made that decision.

Even though the winds are not as strong as before, this is such a slow moving storm, the potential for damage is still very severe.

I'm glad to hear that your mother has left. I'm keeping her, your family down there, and all Floridians in my thoughts and prayers.

Well, the plywood is up on the windows, everything is put up from the outside in my outside shed, the shed is tied down with 4 anchors and steel cable running over the roof, we have gassed up the car and truck, bought 2 tanks of propane for the grill, have tuna, water and bread and turned the freezer to the coldest setting. If we loose electricity I'll be off the air but after 3-4 days I'll be eating a meat diet when the freezer starts warming up. We don't live where flooding is a problem(on top of a hill) but there are a lot of trees in the neighborhood which will probably cause us to loose power when some come down. If it doesn't change it's track the center will bypass us by 80-90 miles. The problem is we are on the east side of the storm that has the tornados and higher winds. We'll know more about this time tomorrow. Fortunately we are located about 65 miles inland so the winds should subside to about 55-65 mph when it gets to us. That's assuming the storm does not intensify from the 115 mph winds it has now or change it's course. Wish us all a safe time. Most of us prepare for the worst and prey for the best. It still beats snow and ice storms and the cold weather. It's comes with being a Floridian.

Thanks Greg! I talked to her at 4pm and she was in South Carolina. She said there was NO TRAFFIC!! I guess everyone got out yesterday. She's headed to NJ to stay with family for a few days--I'm probably going to go over and spend some time with her.

Rich--take care and be safe.

You know you and all the other Floridians are in our thoughts, Rich. Hang on tight!

Hey Rich, ... Put on your PFD just in case. Don't stand under any trees, either.

I'll take the snow and ice storms any day, rather than a hurricane. They both can be a lot of aggravation but hurricanes certainly do a lot more damage, cause entirely too much serious injury and loss of life, and have been know to devastate entire areas within their path. Snow comes, you shovel it, and it eventually melts. People lose power when ice laden wires come down but usually power companies have you up and running in no time.

When a hurricane is about to hit down south, they tell you to run for your lives. Up north everyone runs to the shore to watch the huge waves. Go figure.....

:rolleyes: Bob :rolleyes:

P.S. In all seriousness, our thoughts and prayers are with you guys in the path of this storm.

We reiterate what BobM said. Our thoughts and especially our prayers are with you all.

Bert & Sharon

We know you are all going through bad times right now...but would you Floridians please check in when you can to let us know how our friends there in FL are doing. Our thoughts and prayers are with you all.
Ruthie

I'm alive and well, but the worst of the storm is still to my east. But give me a few minutes and I'll get a few photos posted. The wind is actually blowing the water out of Tampa Bay, and the canal behind my appartment is the lowest I have ever seem it. In fact most of the boats are sitting on the bottom.

Ok here we go First picture is looking up the canal www.lighthousekeepers.com/uploads/files/weasel58@tampabay.rr.com/low.jpg

Second is looking down the canal in the direction of the bay. However there are a few twists and turns before you get there.
www.lighthousekeepers.com/uploads/files/weasel58@tampabay.rr.com/low2.jpg

Glad that you are okay Eric. I hope everyone recovers quickly.

Frances left lots of debris in our yard, one tree uprooted and one large limb twisted off another tree. We had lots of rain and wind..but not nearly as bad as we had thought. Our power was off for 12 hours, but we think our electric company turned it off so that fewer transformers would have to be replaced. We are very blessed. Now, Ivan is on his way. Thanks for all the thoughts and prayers.
Derith

Every day I think about and pray for the folks in Florida who were/are and possibly will be slammed by Hurricane Frances. Mother Nature isn't always too kind or friendly.

Bob

Hello Folks, I am pulling out at 2:30 am heading down to the Disaster Zone (Palm Bay, FL just south of Melbourne). I may be out-of-touch for at least 10 days. I will be taking my Laptop, but don't know what kind of connections I can get down there right now.

As most of you know, my construction job in Jacksonville ended just over a month ago and I returned home to Mobile.

But what you don't know is that I decided to try something new for a while. I am now driving a Charter Tour Bus. So far have only had a few short runs. But at 2:30 am we have 6 busses heading to South Florida loaded with Power Co. employees. I was told to be prepared to stay down there 10 days. So if I can't use my laptop, I'll be seeing you all after that.

PS
Don't forget that we have Ivan heading up this way now too! Will it hit there, while I'm there? Or will it hit Mobile, while I'm gone? Only time will tell.

Life is full of adventures, Stephanie.

Be safe; keep your passengers safe and do good works. God will be with you on your journey.

We hope you find some wi-fi locations (heck, we hope you'll find some electricity!) and can report on what you see and what you are doing.

Hope all my Lighthouse friends are safe. Florida is a nice place to visit but I for one would not want to live there. And why does the state have so many of those Mobil homes that cannot stand up to those wind conditions?

I'm back
Francis was 180 miles away from where I live.
However, we still ended up with 60 mph winds
and gust up to 70 mph.
I had no damage at home except one of my pine trees got the top 1/3rd knocked out.
My power is still out at home and we have no water.I do have power at work and I am
Able to check the forum from there.
The county I live in, Clay had an outage of 106,000 or 70% of the electric company’s members. We may be out of power for an other two or three days or longer. Since I am at the end of the power line, I am expecting to be out of power until Monday. Then Ivan will hit

Keep Rich in your prayers. As you all probably noticed Rich has not been on the forum lately either. I would estimate that he lives about 100 miles from where the hurricane set on land. I would also guess the wind speed that he had to endure was at hurricane force 75 mph or more.

O Ya, Hurricane Ivan is coming next.

My daughter went back to Port St. Lucie today. Thank God no problems with her apartment or place of employment. A big mess though. I feel for all those involved. Keep your fingers crossed cause hurrican season is not over yet

I'm Back!!! What a fantastic time I've had the last 3-4 days. We lost power at 10 AM Sunday and still don't have it back. They say maybe tommorrow. We have no phone and for a part of that time no water. We now have water and that in itself is a blessing. After three day of no electricity and 84 degrees in the house and 80-90% humidity we came to Jacksonville to stay a few days with my daughter. We lost all the food in the freezer and refridgerator and a 120 ft oak tree snapped at the top and about 50 ft of it came down and hit the side of the garage. Thank the good Lord there was only about $600 damage to the side of the garage roof and nothing to the side of the house. Our builder was way ahead of his time in strengthing the house for hurricanes and the house was built in 1980 which was 16 years before they added Andrew restrictions. We're safe and cool for now and Friday we will go home and start cleaning up what is left of the yard. Oh, need I mention I had the rest of that oak tree cut down and this winter my yard will be naked of any trees over 25 feet tall. I will have the remaining 7 oaks cut down and plant drake elms in their place. Anybody for free firewood?

Do you deliver?

Glad to hear that you and your family are OK, Rich. Sounds like you fared pretty well, all things considered. Thank goodness your builder was ahead of his time in construction methods.

We still have some members that we should keep in our thoughts. Gail Jumper (TGFIF) lives somewhere around where Frances came ashore, and I think maybe JoanieO also lives in that area. Hope I'm wrong, but keep them in your thoughts just in case.

I'll deliver a cord for 600 bucks. That will help pay for the cost of cutting the tree down.

Great to see you back on the forums, Rich. I've sent you several emails and hope you get them when the power is back up. Damage to property can be taken care of, loss of life or injury is another thing altogether. Thank God you and yours are safe and well. Received the Nantucket plate today and am very well pleased. Now to get the one for the Eagle. I sent you the number by email, so let me know that you have received it. Thanks and great to have you back on the forums. Something was missing without you here to keep us in line.

Bert

Bert,
Glad you liked the plate. After I get home tomorrow, hopefully we will have power and I can log on and get that number. It will be Monday before I can order the plate and then it will be another week before it's ready. This is all based on the premise that Ivan doesn't hit us.

They say that the last time 2 major hurricanes hit us in the same year was 1933. Three hurricanes have never hit Florida in the same year since they have been keeping records. This may be the record setting year and we in central and southern Florida are willing to share this with our friends in the panhandle part of the state. Idon't wish this on anybody but I don't know how the southern and central parts can handle anymore damage. I look on the bright side and we have our health and maybe the real estate prices will come down as the "snowbirds" look elsewhere for retirement homes instead of "hurricane alley".

Good Luck with "Ivan"! You Florida folks are in my thoughts and prayers!

Rich,

I am very happy that you have made it through without a scratch. Our prayers is that Ivan turns out into the Atlantic where it can't do any more harm. THere are some records that are worth setting, but three huricanes in one season isn't one anyone is looking forward to. Even those of us who aren't in FLorida.

No rush on that plate. I haven't even had time to get to making the display case.

Bert

How about 3 hurricanes in one month? Three in the same season would at least have given folks a chance to catch their breath between hits.

The devastation they are showing from Ivan visiting the small island countries is so massive. Think about those poor folks with so little to start with and even less now. It would be wonderful iuf Bert's wish that the storm just headed out into the open water and disappear would come true. In the meantime, lets keep all the folks in Ivan's path in our thoughts, as well as all those working to recover from the first two go-rounds.

At the invitation of friends in Islamorada, we evacuated to avoid the destruction of Charley On August 13th. Came home to find most of our roof shingles in our swimming pool. Most of the lanai screens were "blowing in the wind." Water stains in many ceilings, but at least our house was still standing. Covered the roof with as many tarps as we could to protect it from the rains of Frances, which took 4 days to cross Florida from east to west. Now we wait. The roofers are so busy, don't know when we will be getting our new roof.
Thank God it looks like IVAN will parallel the west coast and we hope we won't experience too much damage from this one.
But our prayers are with those living in the Panhandle area.
But remember, Floridians are not the only ones who suffer from Hurricanes. We lived through GLORIA in 1985 on Long Island.
Good Luck to all those in IVAN's path. Our prayers are with you. Joan and Ron

My best wishes to everyone in Frances's and now Ivan's paths--you can eat an elephant a spoonful at a time, so please be careful with the clean-up.

We got the remnants of Frances here in CT--rained like H--- for three days and the house we're renovating in a nearby town has no roof (we're adding a second story). Tarps didn't hold up very well and we're now stuck with tearing down walls and ceilings and ripping up carpeting from the first floor. Did I mention elephants?? Think our trusses went to Florida, 'cause they were due here two weeks ago and still haven't arrived. Am so glad I didn't move my collection to the just-completed redo of the basement as I'd planned to do. Going to wait for "shingled" roof before moving anything there!

CHARLEY
FRANCES
IVAN

AND NOW . . . . . JEANNE ! ! ! !

Most of the houses in my neighborhood still have plywood on their windows or have their hurricane shutters up. And the debris from Charley is still littering the streets.

OH, WELL........

JoanieO

Just a short hello to all to let you know that I am back at home safe and sound (for the monent!!!). I left the Disaster Zone of Florida last night to head home and protect my own disaster zone! I have lots of pictures from Florida that I will post with information of my trip. But that will have to come later as Ivan is heading right for my house now!

I will post again as soon as I can.

Stephanie

Hang in there Ron, Joannie, and Stephanie(and all our other Florida friends), we're with you in our thoughts and prayers.
Bob

It's hard to imagine the heartache the folks adversely effected by these hurricanes are experiencing. Many friends of mine own property in Florida and have been notified that there homes are either destroyed or badly damaged. What a sick feeling that must leave in your stomach to know there is nothing you can do about it.

On the other hand, these are their second homes. What happens to those who loose or suffer serious damage to their primary residence?

Many New Englanders move south when they retire, mainly to escape the snow and the cold. I must admit I dislike winter but thoroughly enjoy the other three seasons, especially the summer. I really have no desire to move south especially after seeing what is happening down there this past few weeks. My thoughts and prayers go out to all those folks who suffer the rath of this foul weather.

Bob

Rich,

This is one northerner you won't have to worry about to ruin your realestate market.
I lived in Florida for 6 months back in the 70's, and couldn't stand it. Bought a house and the whole enchilada! Couldn't stand the weather, and more....
Lighthouses are great though!

Thanks to some private tutoring from Dave, I think I'm ready to post some pictures from my stay down in Palm Bay, FL. So here goes!

Here are some pics of what we saw. Sorry for the quality of these pics but they where shot throu the tented windows of the bus as we where traveling down the highway.








And last but not least, some of the Linemem at work.

Stephanie

You did a great job on the pics, Steph! I just can't imagine what is going through people's minds down there right now. The devastation is unbelievable. How do you cope with losing everything you had? How do you rebuild under such adverse conditions?

I think I'll stay in the northeast and shovel a little snow every once in awhile. That's a lot easier than what the folks down south are going through right now.

Bob

Unbelievable pictures Steph! These are pictures that we haven't seen on the news. People at work restoring life to Florida. Thanks for sharing such a wonderful perspective of the hurricanes. I certainly hope that there are no more in store for Florida foy years to come.

Bert

Thanks for the photos Steph, and for helping to do you your part for the folks in Florida!

I.O. made a trip to Canada the other day for Hertz. He ran into some power crews who were returning home from a stint in FL.

He and I both retired from the phone company. There were many occasions where we sent our linemen to distant states to help out after severe storms. But they mostly drove their trucks. I remember once we sent crews to neighboring Rochester, NY to help restore service after a crippling ice storm. They said that when the people saw the trucks enter their street they all came out of their houses and started to applaud!

It will probably be a long time before these folks in FL get phone service back as the power crews have to complete their work first. Of course these days lots of phone service is underground and so many have cell phones that it's not such a hardship as it used to be.