Hurricane Milton - My thoughts afterwards....

After many days of preparing for the impending hurricane, I wonder if we have done enough? Or maybe too much – but time has run out and the storm is coming in.  What will tomorrow look like? Only time will tell.

As the wind picks up, and the rain roars down we watch tv and Milton is coming.  The trusted meteorologist Denis Phillips and his team on ABC Action News.  I have previously downloaded their app to my phone for when we are away or no longer have electricity (power). As night falls, we wait, and wait and wait.  Surprised that the electricity is still on, but I have turned the air conditioner down to high 60s.  We know it’s coming, just when?

And eventually the power goes out and its dark. It’s quiet. It’s eerie.

Jim is in the family room; the dogs and I are in the hallway.  We had received the high winds alert earlier in the evening.  Denis had said to take it seriously – I did.  I grabbed all the dog beds and lined the hallway – closing all the doors to other rooms.

Our dog, Rue, shakes and trembles as the rain falls and the wind howls.  The other dogs and cats appear to be ok – not as affected by what’s happening outside.  Those are the only sounds as the house has grown so quiet – none of the normal sounds of a house with various things running.

I must have fallen asleep for a couple of hours. Eventually it grows quieter outside.  The rain isn’t as hard, the wind isn’t howling.

 It’s about 3am Thursday morning and it sounds like it is almost over.  We have been without power for 6 hours now, but it’s the beginning. 

The dogs and I venture out so they can go potty – just a quick out as we have no idea what state everything is in.  The house appears to be ok – no trees fallen on the roof – our biggest concern.

We go back to sleep.

When the sun rises, you begin to see how bad the debris is – it’s everywhere.  Much of it appears to be smaller leaves and branches.  It’s very quiet outside.  Most of our neighbors have not yet ventured outside.  It’s quiet, no sounds till the generators start.  It’s cool outside thankfully.

The rain has stopped.

Soon we and our neighbors start cleaning up all the moss and smaller debris.  It will take a while.

As the hours tick with no power, we begin to see how many trees in the neighborhood have fallen.  And more are falling due to all the rain.  They just can’t hold on, stressed from the storms this year.  They begin to uproot. 

The water pressure was low when I turned on the facet.  Apparently, we are now under a boil water notice until some time in the future.  Unfortunately, our little city, Temple Terrace, needs a better way to communicate this information as I was cut off from social media.  Every one was asked to stay home so I didn’t see the sign at the library until a few days later.  Fortunately a neighbor told us and we have plenty of water that we had put into containers before the storm.

We had over 12 inches of rain from Milton, maybe as much as 20 inches of rain.  No real idea.  Over ½ million people that have TECO (Tampa Electric Company) for electrical/power service are now dark.  This was in Hillsborough County.  We are in Hillsborough County.  It’s bad. 

The more we venture away from our property the more trees we see fell.  Pine trees did poorly – many have fallen.  Some of the big live oaks are down also.  We heard of some trees coming down on houses – thankful that didn’t happen to us.  We see power lines snapped and tangled with the trees.  It’s going to be a while.

As the days continue, we still have no power. 

We had to cut one of our beautiful oak trees down, it was too close to the patio and house now.  A victim of too much abuse over the years from storms.  I am very sad.  My heart is heavy.  The tree was here long before me, long before this house, having been here at least 130 years.   With each storm it got closer to our house.  It just couldn't hold on anymore.

This year alone we have had Hurricane Debby, Hurricane Helene and now Hurricane Milton.  The last 2 storms being 2 weeks apart.  $7500 dollars later and my beautiful oak tree is now a stump.  A huge pile of oak wood on the front lawn to die.  My gardens are a mess, my yard is largely trashed.  I have no heart or desire to fix it.  Why? It will never be the same.  All I see is beauty gone. Maybe in time that will change.

After a week with generators, no power, life is really tough. 

I am thankful that we have a generator. 

I am thankful that we have gas for the generator. 

I am thankful that we were actually pretty well prepared for this. 

I have learned a lot from all the storms we have endured.

I am thankful that we still have a home – but I am sad that mother nature is giving us so much grief.  I am sad for all those that are worse off than us – hopefully we will all rise again above this in time.

We have done all we can.  We have cleaned up a lot of yard debris, helped neighbors, talked with our neighbors daily and gotten to know each other much better.

On Tuesday, just 6 days after Milton came through, we decided to go ahead and take our planned long RV trip.  Why stay?  It’s a mess.   Maybe it will be better in a few weeks.  We emptied our fridge and freezer putting most of it into coolers.  Nothing left but water.

We will start over when we get home.

Tuesday late afternoon we arrived at Falling Waters State Park in Chipley, Florida.  We camped out for the night and enjoyed not being in the stress of all that was going on back home.  We immediately were greeted by our campsite neighbor, Jim (yes, same name as my partner).  Life will be simpler on the road and best of all we will have electricity and water.

This is the first of many blog posts that I will be writing over the next few weeks sharing our first long RV trip in our Bushwhacker Plus teardrop camper.