Hurricane Wilma

[Grundislav]

As I'm sure most of you are aware, Florida recently had the "pleasure" (note extreme sarcasm) of going through Hurricane Wilma, a category 3 storm, on Sunday, October 23rd.

The storm has devastated most of south florida, especially Broward county, which hasn't experienced a storm of this intensity for over 50 years.  Florida Power and Light is estimating that it will take up to 4 weeks to restore power to the roughly 2 million people left without electricity.  I was lucky enough to get my power back at 3am this morning, but I know Darth and Tiki live in Broward county.  Hopefully they're doing okay, and are just extremely bored like I was the past 2 days, and not dealing with anything serious.

On the bright side, even though this storm did a lot of damage, it didn't wipe out entire neighborhoods like some previous storms, and the death toll so far is less than 10 people reported.

I just hope this is the last storm of the season, because this is starting to get ridiculous.

[Shane 'ProgZmax' Stevens]

At this rate I hate to see what next year's storm season will be like.  Glad you made it through.

[Kal-El]

Yes, glad to hear you're ok.

What the hell is it with all this storms/tornedo's etc lately??? Global Warming?

[SSH]

It's God's retribution for who you voted for last year. Didn't you know that God is a Democrat? 

There's still another six weeks left of hurricane season, too and they're already onto greek letters, having run out of Roman alphabet. You really need to start worrying when they get on to Hurricane Tav, though...

[Nacho]

Glad to see you're still here Francisco... I imagined you awakening up in the middle of Mount Trashmore, going out of your bed and saying... "uh? where is my Ben Jordan 5 files backup?"

[Darth Mandarb]

Hi, I am logging in at Jeremy's request to let you know that he's okay.  We got hit reeeaaaally hard by Wilma and do not have power or water at our home...  fortunately my office is running on limited power and the internet gods have smiled upon us.
We'll keep you posted on the damage.
,
Sara

[Pumaman]

Good to see you guys are ok ... it does seem absolutely insane the number of hurricanes that the US has suffered this year, I don't know how you have the patience for it!

[skyfire2]

It must be a government conspiracy.

[Darth Mandarb]

Yo!

My parent's got power (and more importantly internet access) back just now!  So needless to say Sara and I will be hangin' here for awhile!

I get my first shower in 3 days ... eek!

Grund - good to hear you're okay!Ã,  I think we took the brunt of this one and let you Dade folk have a "slight" break

I took pictures ... it's hard to believe.Ã,  When I get my office back up and running (I am moving it into my parent's house temporarily!) I will post some of them!

As SSH pointed out ... there's still 6 more weeks.Ã,  We surely don't need another one.

On a positive note, the last two days have been the best weather I've ever experienced here in South Florida.Ã,  I spent all day yesterday and today cleaning up my parent's yards.Ã,  What a mess.Ã,  BUT I couldn't have asked for better days to do it.Ã,  Cloudless sky, about 68-70 degrees.Ã,  Just perfect!

And yes ... it is INCREDIBLY boring without power!!Ã,  How did mankind EVER survive before electricity ?!?!

[Ashen]

Three words - Erotic shadow puppets.

Good to hear everyone checking in OK, and slowly moving towards normality. Never thought I'd be grateful for British weather.

[Grundislav]

Glad to hear you're okay, Darth.  Yeah, Broward definitely got the worst of it this time.

And yes, the weather has definitely been our salvation after this storm.  It was very pleasant to be able to sleep with the windows open and no electricity and NOT wake up drenched in your own sweat. 

[Tiki]

We got WALLOPED.

Glad to see you two are okay, I didn't expect both of you to have posted already.

Geez, I don't know where to start.  Lost power about 8 AM on Monday morning - it's currently Wednesday night.  Everything in our fridges had to be trashed, but that's very minor.  We lost about 2 dozen screens (similar to nets)  for our patio.  A tree hit the edge of that patio structure, knocked a good portion of it into the pool.  Some of our Hurricane shutters were ripped clean off.

There is not a single yard that hasn't lost a tree, 6 hours north of here, 6 hours south.  The eye of the storm went over me, possibly Darth and Grund.   Massive trees block all the major roadways, there isn't a single street light working

Enough yammering, here are some pictures.


The sky, as seen during the storm, roughly around the eye of it.


Trees like this are found every other house - the whole roots are pulled out with it.


Split!


A nearby neighbor's yard.  That tree hit the water thing... flooded the whole house, caused the ceiling to fall in.


Patio shutter damage.


Patio screen/structure damage.  The left-most area still has a screen intact.  You can't tell, but a large portion of that area is missing - poles like my hand has holding there.


Scrabble!

Couldn't agree more with Darth about the beautiful weather.  We were so lucky to get our power tonight - it's amazing really.  They're hoping to get 50% of Broward county power by Nov. 15; I was looking weeks ahead.

We're pretty lucky compared to some neighbors - some had trees strike their house and flood the whole place.

Well.. I'd like to say how TERRIBLE it is not to have power.  Nothing to do but eat and lie around.  Board games can only go so far

[MillsJROSS]

The storm didn't touch Tallahassee, other than to give us nice weather...but my parents lost their power and decided to go up to Jacksonville and stay with my sister. I'm glad to here everyone is okay...I can't wait till I'm done with college and can move out of this hurrican ridden state. These past few years have seemed rougher than usual.

-MillsJROSS

[Darth Mandarb]

Tiki and Mills checking in!

Good to hear from you guys!

I finally got my computer up and running and set up a little webpage to showcase some photos I took.

http://www.twin-design.com/hurricanewilma

Enjoy

[Squinky]

The hurricane brought giant lizards?@!?!

I'm glad all you guys are okay. This is getting to be a scary ritaul lately. You guys need to move up to Idaho, no hurricanes.

Not much else either, but at least no hurricanes...

[Kweepa]

The hurricane brought giant lizards?@!?!

No, they're only 6" long...

Good to hear everyone is ok.

[Darth Mandarb]

EEk ... typo!  I meant 6 FEET long ... they were dinosaur looking.

I actually got within 3-4 feet from them.  Trust me, they were GIANT!

[juncmodule]

What the hell is it with all this storms/tornedo's etc lately??? Global Warming?

Actually, no and yes. There aren't actually more storms, there are the same number, it's just that they are worse. Because the ocean temperature has gone up the storms build up stronger and last longer. I just learned that this quarter, interesting stuff.

I think you folks in Florida are becoming pros at this stuff. I didn't realize that you got hit so bad. I've seen news about gas shortages and minor things like that. Nothing that wouldn't work itself out in a week or so.

[Darth Mandarb]

I live in Davie (just outside of Ft. Lauderdale) and we still don't have power.  They're now saying it might be as long as November 22 before our power is restored.  Sara and I are staying with my parent's in Coral Springs.

I've spent the last three/four days cutting up trees (with a chainsaw) and hauling it all out to the street.  It's not too much fun, but it needs to be done.

I've determined, however, that the world would be a fundementally nicer place if there were more natural disasters.

Everybody is being so patient and polite ... it's almost sickening.

The only places I've see it getting out of hand are the intersections (while driving) that don't have traffic lights.  Some people just can't quite grasp the concept of a four-way stop.  And the gas-lines are INSANE.  People were fighting because idiots who feel they shouldn't have to wait in line were cutting in, and the police promptly stepped in so it's under control now.

All in all, from what I've seen, I'm impressed how the people down here handled the after-math.  I haven't toured the entirety of south Florida obviously, but I've been as far north and east as Pompano, as far north and west as Coral Springs, and as far south as the southern end of Davie (by 75).  Everybody seems to be coping well and cleaning up more and more every day.

[skyfire2]

I guess it sucks for you guys.