Because I live in one of the newer parts of town, where numerous canals were
dug to fill land to a reasonable elevation, 8 feet above sea level, I have
excellent drainage.   Flooding was never much of an issue, but the wind
certainly was.

This was the biggest hurricane I've ever been involved in.  Literally, we
had tropical storm force winds for four solid days.  Scattered in that were
periods of hurricane force winds.  Results, in my case are mixed.  Here's a
blow by blow of the Frances experience:

On Wednesday, we were pretty sure that we were going to get some serious
effects of the hurricane.  I left work early to ensure the lines on the boat
I keep in the water were as secure as I could make them.  I considered
taking the boat south, into the Florida Keys, but we just could not be sure
that the hurricane would not head that way as the one a few weeks before
had.  The rest of my time was spent taking the coconuts off the trees in my
front yard (deadly missiles in a hurricane) and getting everything in my
yard and patio put away.  By about 8:00 that night, that job was done.
Thursday AM, I started looking for storm shutters.  I was a bit late.
Everything, and I mean everything, was already sold out.  That's not as big
a deal as it sounds.  I've gone through other hurricanes without storm
shutters and, while it's taking a bit of a chance, I've always done fine.
The key is ensuring that there are no loose items around to be blown into
the windows.  The wind alone is normally not enough to break them.  Thursday
afternoon, I went over to my club to pick up my 15 foot boat.  It's not
insured.  Like the larger, older boat, insurance is prohibitively expensive
(about 10% of the insurable value of the large boat, about 25% of the
insurable value of the smaller one per year).  Insurance companies really
don't want to ensure boats in Florida and, in particular, don't want to
insure small or old ones.  My homeowner's insurance, however, covers
everything on my property, which is why the 15 footer needed to be here
rather than at my club.

The next step was to get the tank on my car filled.  My wife took care of
hers the day before.  The idea is to have the tanks full because hurricanes
normally disrupt power and, without power, the gas pumps don't pump.  I was
too late for this too.  As it turns out, I did get gas on Friday.

At 11:00 AM on Thursday, the National Hurricane Center issued a hurricane
warning for most of the east coast of Florida.  That means hurricane force
winds expected within 24 hours.  At the time, Frances was packing sustained
winds of about 145 mph with gusts up to around 185 mpg.  You don't have to
convert to KPH to know that's serious wind.

Thinking I was as ready as I was going to be, I looked out my rear doors to
find the door to my screened enclosure was open.  When I went to close it,
it would not close.  I soon discovered that three of the bolts holding the
enclosure to the patio deck had sheared off.  I got to the hardware store
just in time to see them close their doors.  No matter, a run to a friends
house got me the concrete screws I needed to secure it again.  It's not that
I care about the enclosure.  It's going to be replaced soon anyway.  The
problem is, the loose part would cause the enclosure to twist and collapse,
damaging my roof in the process.  At any rate, I secured that and was as
ready as I was going to get.

I watched limbs from the six palms in my front yard break off.  Lucky for
me, none of them landed on our cars or broke windows.  I went outside to cut
off any that did not break completely free on their own.  I didn't want 12
foot branches swinging around in close proximity to windows with no
shutters.  I lost about half the limbs, but the trees survived.

About 5:00 PM on Saturday, the power went out.  I have a 7.5/13,500 kw
generator and a system for powering my house from it as well as a stock of
fuel.  While it was hard to get fuel for my car, being in a boat club made
it easy to get fuel for the generator.  It won't run the central air and I
have to be careful not to run more than one major appliance (stove, hot
water heater, dishwasher, coffee pot, microwave, etc.) at a time, but it
pretty much powers everything else.  In particular, it ran my ice maker,
freezer, two refrigerators, television, lights and ceiling fans.  Despite
reports that the power company would not be working during the storm, they
arrived about a half hour after the power went out.  The problem was that a
banyan tree was blown down on the wires.  It shattered the base of a wooden
power pole.  The power company worked until 2:00 AM to cut the tree off the
wires, straighten and temporarily brace the pole and get the power back on.
It mattered little to me, with my generator, but it mattered a lot to others
in the neighborhood.  I can't even imagine what it much be like to work with
a power saw, from a bucket truck extended 20 or 30 feet in the air, during a
hurricane.  I was impressed with those guys and told them so.  When it's all
over, I'll tell their company too.

When it was all said and done, which it pretty much is now, I lost most of
the screen on my patio, about half the limbs from my palms and, worst of
all, quite a few shingles from my roof.  I'll go up tomorrow to ensure I
don't have any leaks and, if I do, will temporarily patch them.  It will
almost certainly be months before I can get somebody out to do the repair.
There's a good chance that I'll have to replace the roof at a cost of
something between $5,000 and $10,000.  Insurance may pay for some, but not
all of that.

As of now, I've got one working phone line and one not working.  The phone
company indicates that the non working line may be fixed sometime in
October.  I'm lucky to have even one working.  The trunk line got fried
during the storm.  For now, I have to share my voice and data lines.  I've
got power and all my boats are OK.  I'm luckier than many.

Central Florida is still feeling the effects of the storm.  The eye has
moved off the west coast now, but there's still about 80 miles of gale force
winds following it and the storm is moving very slowly.  It's reduced to a
tropical storm, but it's still big, powerful and wet.  Across Florida, there
are about 5,000,000 people without power and more than a few without water
service.  Those in coastal areas of central east and west Florida have not
yet been allowed to return to their homes.

It's a real mess and, worse still, there's another hurricane already on the
way and, like Frances, it's a strong one, another category 4.  By Friday, we
should know a lot more about the projected path of Ivan, but right now, it's
aimed right at us.  This is the first time Florida has ever been hit by two
hurricanes in the period of a month.  It looks like, this year, it may be
three.

Lee
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