It's almost like someone, somewhere, thought this might happen again and maybe they even had a plan with materials and equipment at the ready for when it happens.

Tony.

quote:

Private company fixing private property perhaps?

^^^^^^^^^^^
Well it is called the RAILROAD. I guess that would be termed private. It was implicit in my previous statement.

quote:

Originally posted by benny6:
It's almost like someone, somewhere, thought this might happen again and maybe they even had a plan with materials and equipment at the ready for when it happens.

Tony.

Agreed, they learned from the previous experiences and planned, prepared, and are executing a well thought out response.

On my way out today I saw a tractor trailer hauling what looked like a prefab bridge section. It was heading south on US27 and could have been taking the back way down to the west coast.

I’ve tried and failed to find pictures of what was damaged and what was repaired going out to Pine Island. I strongly suspect the portions of Pine Island Rd going over water between mainland Florida and Matlacha and Matlacha and Pine Island were not significantly damaged. There’s no way the over water portions were fixed in three days. I would guess the road over Matlacha washed out and a whole lot of dump trucks with rock and gravel were brought in to fill the gaps.

Trapper here are pics of Pine Island:

https://www.npr.org/sections/p...w-hurricane-ian-toll

Desantis has a temporary bridge going to PI and mandated the DOT to have one to Sanibel by Octobers end.

I see a picture of the Sanibel Causeway in that link but none of Pine Island Rd.

I’ll guarantee there was no temporary bridge to Pine Island built in three days. I know that’s what’s being reported, but it falls into the it’s going to Tampa and there will be a 12-18 feet of water above the dry land categories of reporting.

What can happen in three days is filling in the holes where the road on land washed away.

Ah, here we go. I found a picture from miamiherald.com:



Exactly what I figured. No bridge built, but rather a hole filled.

Sorry, I was not clear on the bridge. PI gets a bridge then Sanibel

Damn


The Sanibel Island Lighthouse


Before Ian:



After Ian:

Question: How many linemen does it take to put in a power pole?

Answer: No on cares because the power will be back on.


My street right now, three bucket trucks blocking in front of my drive, five more to the left, plus three or four pickups. It’s a thing of beauty:

The resources of our country are impressive. If it is a busy storm season those guys make six figures.

And the power is back on!

Absolutely amazing job these gentleman have done. It was three to four weeks before we got power after Charley and Charley affected such small area compared to Ian.

Unfortunately, the sailboat across the cove from us sank today. I’m guessing the batteries running a bilge pump ran out.

Congratulations!

Glad you got your power back, it's a heck of a good feeling... It is amazing the amount of power trucks and the quick work going on to get the grid running...

BTW seems what some were predicting is coming true, EV's don't like being in water.

Florida’s Top Fire Marshal Warns ‘Tons’ of Waterlogged Electric Vehicles Catching on Fire After Hurricane Ian

Yeah my brother in the battery business says to never get lithium ion batteries wet if there is even a remote chance they aren’t sealed.

I live in Charlotte county. I have had no internet and no cell service since the storm. Cell service is just starting to trickle in at dial up speed.

Storm went right over my house. We went out when the eyewall was over us and had about 30 minutes of calm to look things over.

I live on an acre with LOTS of oak trees. All of them were damaged, tops twisted off, not a single leaf left on the trees. A 2500 pound tree branch smashed through my roof and started dumping rain water into my master bathroom. We scrounged up buckets and plastic totes and were able to catch the majority of the rainwater coming in through the ceiling.

My kids had been hunkering down in that bathroom on a mattress reading books via lantern light, but we moved them to a more interior bathroom about 15 minutes before the tree smashed through the roof. I saw the winds shift and lots of trees come down on that side of the house and decided to move them. Glad I did.

A large glass door on the patio almost busted open. My wife screamed for me to come help and I found her yanking the door closed with all her strength. I went outside and was able to push some heavy items against the door to prevent it from getting blown open.

Amazingly, power stayed on during the first few hours of the storm. (Our power lines are buried) It went out during the second half of the storm. At about 2AM, I woke up and went outside to turn the generator on. I had the generator in my hand, pulling it out of the garage, when the garage light came on! The power came back on just as I was about to hook the generator to the house! We only lost power for like 6 hours! Kudos to buried power lines!

My neighborhood is a mess. There were 2-3 large oaks across the road so no one could get in or out of the neighborhood. Some guys went out and cut the large trees off of the road early in the morning before I could offer to help.

My yard was a fucking disaster. I’m talking about 25 oaks down. Disaster. I asked a tree guy that was next door and he said over $10,000 to clean up the tree damage. No thanks.

I got to work. I have two chainsaws. So I started cutting. It took about 4 full days but I was able to chop everything up and drag it out to the road. My hands and feet are blistered and bleeding hunks of meat, but they will recover.

Before the storm I did get 50 gallons of gas in my fuel containers and I’m glad I did so. Gas was nonexistent and impossible to find for the first week. Cars littered the interstate and highways because people ran out of gas. I was able to give friends and family 5 gallon containers of fuel and it helped them out tremendously.

I collect flashlights and have thousands of dollars worth of them. My wife had friends over and offered them my stuff while I was gone. I’m ok with helping others but don’t give out the expensive shit to people we barely know and will likely never see the flashlights again. Boy was I pissed. I have tons of cheap stuff that I would gladly loan out but she gave my best most expensive shit out. Lesson learned, hide the good stuff before the wife and friends ask for it. A 7 year old does not need a $250 Surefire light for a night light

I’m glad you and your family are OK. I’m sorry to hear about your house. Do you guys have a place to stay? Do you need anymore help with the trees? After Charley, we rented a T300 Bobcat with a grapple from Punta Gorda Do-All which made cleaning up the trees on our property a lot easier. I still have the Stihl Farmboss we bought then and it still runs like a champ.

I changed the oil on my generators before I started them. I bought them 18 years ago and only started one of them once. Searching the internet to see what kind of oil, I found a 2008 post in another forum by a guy named bubbatime who also lives in SWFL recommending 15w40 HDEO, so that’s what I went with. Generators ran great.

Emailed is in my profile if there’s anything I can help you with.

If your trees are trimmed properly they will come back. Live oaks are hardy. We had quite a number that were wind damaged and went through the surge. It took a while but they did ok.

quote:

Originally posted by trapper189:
I’m glad you and your family are OK. I’m sorry to hear about your house. Do you guys have a place to stay? Do you need anymore help with the trees? After Charley, we rented a T300 Bobcat with a grapple from Punta Gorda Do-All which made cleaning up the trees on our property a lot easier. I still have the Stihl Farmboss we bought then and it still runs like a champ.

I changed the oil on my generators before I started them. I bought them 18 years ago and only started one of them once. Searching the internet to see what kind of oil, I found a 2008 post in another forum by a guy named bubbatime who also lives in SWFL recommending 15w40 HDEO, so that’s what I went with. Generators ran great.

We were able to patch the roof, so we should be ok until we can get a roofer up there to fix things properly.

A bobcat would have been handy to move the trees, but we did it the old fashioned way with manual labor and got things done.

We are much better off than a lot of other folks, that's for sure. I drove through Harbor Heights and Port Charlotte and a lot of the older 60's and 70's houses lost their roofs.

We have food, power, and the internet just came back on. We are doing ok.

Yes I did have a small engine shop some years back and I have always recommended SAE40 or 15W40 engine oil for our generators down here that run at 3600 RPM constant. Seems to consume less and last longer before break down.

Glad you and the family are ok, had to be something to have a tree hit the roof, all that water saturating the ground and the wind it was inevitable