Thread: To all those in Florida

Palm harbor here. We were in the crosshairs but seems we will miss the brunt of it. Sarasota Naples and ft Myers however are about to get hammered. Hopefully everyone gets out of the way especially those in low lying areas. 9 ft inundation is not something to fool around with. Stay safe.

Be safe Bill. I hope you're on high ground. That's still pretty darn close.

Originally Posted by PaulFLUS

Be safe Bill. I hope you're on high ground. That's still pretty darn close.

Thanks! You too. We are.about 70 feet above sea level here. Flood rating is x500. We have rentention lake with drainage. But you know what they say! Man plans and God laughs. Lol. We shall see.

Originally Posted by Bill31521

Thanks! You too. We are.about 70 feet above sea level here. Flood rating is x500. We have rentention lake with drainage. But you know what they say! Man plans and God laughs. Lol. We shall see.

You still hanging in there Bill? I tried to send a PM but it wouldn't go through. I know it hit pretty hard not too far south of you.

Stay safe. Hoping Leonard posts soon. I chatted with him before it hit and he said he would be fine. I know he is on the other side of the Florida coast down south but the water and power outages have got to be messing with him too.

Originally Posted by Gasman

Stay safe. Hoping Leonard posts soon. I chatted with him before it hit and he said he would be fine. I know he is on the other side of the Florida coast down south but the water and power outages have got to be messing with him too.

I talked to him this morning and he is okay there. Actually he was checking one. We got lucky here and it took a hard right and missed us. We are still getting some wind but nothing like Fort Myers and Cape Coral where it hit. If someone has an email for Bill I'd like to hear from him. He is pretty close to where it made landfall.

Hope alls well for all, down there.

Still waiting to hear from my buddy in Punta Gorda. Hear there was lots of damages.

Originally Posted by PaulFLUS

You still hanging in there Bill? I tried to send a PM but it wouldn't go through. I know it hit pretty hard not too far south of you.

We did absolutely fine. Didn't lose power. It was a rain event here. It was windier today than yesterday. No damages at all. Hope you did ok. Many fellow Floridians didn't fare as well.

Good to hear Bill. I was a little worried about you being that close. Glad to hear you made it through unscathed.

Yeah, we are all fine here. Lee county wasn't so lucky it seems. Prayers still for those people. I was doing roofing work in Miami after Andrew and I still have vivid memories of what that was like. That was more of a wind event and solidly Cat 5 (177 mph sustained winds with gusts near 200) so it looked like a bomb went off. Ian was more of a water event so a different kind of devastation but still bad, maybe worse as it sounds like death toll may end up higher.

In Miami after Andrew. This one guy in Kendall had a stop sign in the corner in his house. He told us the story. As the storm got out of control he walked out of the bathrooom to check something and he happened to look out the front window facing the intersection and saw the stop sign twisting back and forth in the wind blowing right toward his house and he could see the pole was about to break. Just as it did he dove down behind the couch and it went through his front window, over his head, through the sliding glass door and landed in his pool.

Hard to believe a big thunderstorm could do all that. It made me feel very small and insignificant.

I've never had the misfortune to experience such a scary event thank my lucky stars.

I did visit New Orleans the year after Katrina though.

You would think that a year after a big City like that would be back to normal but, there were symbols sprayed on still doors by rescuers, cars that were ruined by the flood under the overpass, loads of them. The big arena that people evacuated to wasn't fixed and I have no idea where the locals got groceries because all the grocery stores I saw were still closed.

One of the problems is that when the levies broke, the town is very low, even the cemeteries had vaults because nobody could dig a hole for a coffin.

My heart went out to the people living there.

And then, just in the middle of my sympathy one of the locals came up to me and said,"I bet you $10 I can tell where you got those sneakers".

There were a few guys standing around, no doubt to make sure I paid up but luckily I had been warned by the hotel receptionist not to fall for it.

Their answer would have been, on your feet and i would have been $10 lighter.

The long bridge into New Orleans was closed still and as we drove along the coast from Mobil Alabama we saw signs like the McDonalds just standing there, no buildings just signs.

That was one of the most memorable experiences i had, I don't know how the locals escaped with their lives but they certainly have my respect.