Post Irma
WOW, WHEW, YIKES, HOLY COW and more. I have lived in Florida for nearly three decades. 8 years over on the gulf coast and 22 years here in the Central Florida area. I have been thru a few hurricanes but this one was something completely different. I say that, but when I think back, each hurricane is unique in its own way. The first thing about Irma was the sheer size of the storm. Coast to coast, the hurricane was drawing strength from both the Atlantic side and from the Gulf of Mexico at the same time. We are located just west of the Disney World area. The Eye of the storm came right at us until the last minute when the eye wall just blew apart and became the biggest down burst you could imagine. WE had 64 mile per hour sustained winds with gusts over 9
0 for 6 hours! We did not sleep for more than 40 hours. The anxiety level was horrible.
The next morning we crawled out for our first look. As tens of thousands of other people were doing the same thing, as we viewed our properties. We lost power about 8pm that night and would have no power for the next 4 days. We live out in a very rural area and have no city water so without electric our home is nothing more than a very fancy tent. Shingles missing, fences down, debris everywhere, BIG BIG 120 year old OAK trees down over our drive way with no way out. No place to go anyway since everything was under a curfew and many had no power.
The Good news was that we are all safe, our home is still in one piece and we can live in it. The trees missed our vehicles (by less than three feet). To our surprise our neighbor and one of our best pilot friends showed up when they heard we were trapped and brought chain saws. 
Three of us with Chain saws and 5 others spend nearly 5 hours cutting our way out. The three of us with chain saws were joking that we were playing a big kids game of Jenga. Cut the wrong branch and very bad things could happen. Carefully and very surgically we cut the branches down to the main trunk. We then used a floor jack to support some of the last cuts managed to free ourselves from our blocked in status. 
We did have a generator but it was a very small one. Years ago, I wired in pig-tails into my electrical box. This would allow me to use what is called as a suicide cord to plug the generator directly into the house. The generator was one I had purchased back when I was a single man and did not need A/C or all those extras. This was a generator that would keep the refrigerator, freezer running. It would also provide us a few fans, a few lights, TV and satellite and enough power to run my office to provide internet to the house. We had to shut down my office and the fans so my wife could vacuum before bed. A ritual that not even a hurricane would stop. 
The next five days were spent mostly outside. I had two 55 gallon drums that had been converted into burning cans. We had then running for more than a week straight. We had literally a ton of debris from the trees all over the property. Rake and rake and then rake some more. Load the wheel barrow and take it back to the burn cans. At one point we had a pile in the back yard the size of a 15 passenger van. Two weeks later and we still have a pile bigger than that out in the front of the house. We did do a tremendous amount of work preparing for the storm and ALL of it was worthwhile in the end. Over all we were very fortunate it sure could have been much worse and for many it was and our hearts go out to those who have lost their home or still have no power.
When our power came back on we immediately loaned out our generator to a retired couple 
who were living in a mobile home with no power. We had heard thru a friend of a friend that the husband had just been released from the hospital for heat exhaustion and severe dehydration from being in the mobile home for 4 days with no AC. They were able to run a small room air conditioner and the fridge with a few lights and a fan. Their daughter could not thank us enough and we knew firsthand how the heat had taken a huge toll on us. The heat here in Florida is no joke and after a hurricane moves thru it draws all the water and clouds with it. So we were baking in 92 degree heat and 90% humidity and perfectly clear skies. Anyone exposed to this kind of heat can easily, for even the healthiest of us, become very overwhelmed with that. I know when Gina and I hit day 6 we were both suffering from exhaustion and we had our power back and A/C so we could go inside and relax a little.
My parents were extremely fortunate. They never lost electric and had virtually no damage to their home at all. In fact they were part of the cleanup crew the morning after, when we had to cut and clear two huge oak trees from our driveway. My father told me that I should not be carrying such big logs with my bad ankle. I continued to cut and carry because the job just had to be done. A few minutes later my brother told me to tell dad to stop carrying such big logs and I told him that dad had said the same thing to me and I did not listen so I don’t think he would listen to me either. 
Our evening ritual became a trip to grandma’s house. My wife and I and our two small children would go to grandma’s house each night for some AC and showers till we got our power back on.
Over all we were blessed. It is sad to see the 100+/yr old trees come down and there will forever be a whole in the sky in our front yard. The wind was from the east and we have a large lake directly east of our home so there was no stopping the wind and the gusts that were pounding us all night long. Cleanup will go on for weeks and it will be a very long time before the scars heal and normalcy creeps its way back in, but it will.
THANK YOU to all our friends who called, texted, emailed and more.
WOW, WHEW, YIKES, HOLY COW and THANK GOD… Jeff
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