One more post before bed.

Several months ago, my wife asked what in the world are we going to do with 1,000’ of stained orange paracord? I answered 10% of that question yesterday:



The generator won’t run the clothes dryer.

For those helping with the recovery efforts, thank you.
Benny6 thank you for volunteering and thank you for posting the pictures.

For those effected by the storm we all hope for a safe and quick recovery.

Please donate to the Florida Disaster Fund if you have a few bucks to spare.

https://www.volunteerflorida.org/donatefdf/

Sorry if this has already been posted. My internet service in south Sarasota County has been out.

Well, back after a brief hiatus courtesy of Ian, we were lucky, our neighbors not so much, at least 10 homes in the neighborhood flooded, total loss of furniture, cabinets, drywall and we are not in area prone to flooding.

This truly was a 500 year storm, in the PUD we have 6 main bridges for transportation over the main creek, 4 are closed from damage by flooding, normally its less than a half mile trip to my daughters house, now, 15 minutes taking multiple detours to get around closed bridges and over one of two that is open.

Woke up Thursday 5 am to power surges, knew it was about to go, we figured wind, we were wrong, the neighborhood was flooding, bad. Water was coming up my driveway, which is elevated, it got up as far as the rear wheel of my Truck parked outside. Once the sun was up and it was clear we were reasonably safe from being flooded I fired up the generator. Running a 220 feed, we could run 2 refrigerators, lights, fans, tv, medical equipment.

Power was restored once water receded enough by Friday evening, that was due to the fast work of all the power companies that were ready to help.

The neighbor hood flooded, getting in and out required very slow driving for no wake due to flooded homes and transport required a pickup. No cars or SUVs could get through the several feet deep water.

A few images of before and during Ian

Normal view of the streets





Same viewpoint the morning after IAN flooded our area






Every House in the right hand picture flooded, the ones to the right of the tree you can't see, had over a foot of water intrude totally destroying everything inside.




While it doesn't look like it, that's Number 10 fairway toward the creek at the far left
it doesn't have water on the hole other than the creek which is usually 4 feet below the
ground level. That's 400 yards of water that worked back UP the fairway, water was blowing
uphill toward us, and lucky didn't get in the house because our lot is built up



That "Island" is a mound on the hole that is about 5 ft high, the edge of the water is where
our lot was built up and it stopped the progression, the water flowed uphill past the house, out two houses over
onto the main street.

In the overall view of the storm, we were lucky, none lost lives, we all worked together to
help others, a few homes interiors were flooded and people lost just about everything inside,
but the waters gone down, and we're still here.

Looks like I'm headed down to Port Charlotte again tomorrow to check on an old man in his 80's. Apparently, he survived the storm but nobody's has heard from him since Thursday. I'm going to take a cell phone backup battery and a couple of meals and make sure he's okay. Last report was that he lost most of his roof but still wanted to stay.

Let me know if anyone needs anything while I'm in the neighborhood. I've got an oil change scheduled for 11:30 tomorrow and will head out after that's done.

HRK- glad to hear you're okay.

Trapper, Operation BBQ will be there for a month. I'm going out again next Monday with a friend from church.

Tony.

See aerial pictures that show Hurricane Ian's toll

Probably the best pictures I have seen that gives one an idea of the damage.

Hurricane Ian destroyed several portions of the Sanibel Causeway, the series of bridges that connects mainland Florida to Sanibel Island — which is home to some 6,500 people and located just south of where the storm made landfall. The Category 4 storm caused severe damage and flooding to Fort Myers and other gulf coast cities. ⁠

Take a look at the photos.

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

quote:

Originally posted by ZSMICHAEL:
See aerial pictures that show Hurricane Ian's toll

Probably the best pictures I have seen that gives one an idea of the damage.

Hurricane Ian destroyed several portions of the Sanibel Causeway, the series of bridges that connects mainland Florida to Sanibel Island — which is home to some 6,500 people and located just south of where the storm made landfall. The Category 4 storm caused severe damage and flooding to Fort Myers and other gulf coast cities. ⁠

Take a look at the photos.

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

Alot of the local tv stations down there have aerial & on the ground footage posted on YouTube. We've been watching those for the last few nights.

Spot on!

Yeah! Politics in an apolitical thread.

Just got my power and internet back on yesterday.

That was a nasty storm. We came through it with not much more than the inconvenience caused by the power outages, but I have friends who lost restaurants, stores and homes. It was way worse than anyone had expected.

Where I am, the winds were much lower than Hurricane Irma but the storm surge was just catastrophic. My street had over 3 feet of water and a little closer to the beach, I saw water lines 5 feet high on homes.

You may remember during Irma, my service dog non-profit had to evacuate its building and move all the dogs inland to a church that hosted us for a few days. As a result of that experience, we launched a capital campaign to get a new building. We completed our move into a 30,000 sq. ft. building in March. It's built to withstand a category 4 storm and includes a massive generator donated by CAT, so we never lost power. The dogs are happy, healthy and safe.

I assume this has been posted. But to donate to Florida….

https://www.volunteerflorida.org/donatefdf/

Just got back. Trapper went there in the morning to see if he could contact "Ed" but no answer. At least we knew his house wasn't a pile of sticks. I showed up in the early afternoon and managed to make contact with him. He was alive and has been living on beer and peanut butter (no kidding, really, he has). We took him five chick-fil-a sandwiches and two bags of ice.

I jumped on the phone and let him talk to his family in PA for a while and left him my card and his family's phone number to call if he needs. We took a portable battery but we didn't have the appropriate connector to charge his phone. If he needs to call, he'll have a friend call if there's a need.

As we filled his ice chest to keep the sandwiches from spoiling, he commented to leave enough room for the beer. Priorities, you know! We also left at tank of water for him so he doesn't run out.

He lost some of the vinyl siding and the wind got under the roof and blew out some of the ceiling tiles. I'll check in on him again on Monday and hopefully he has power by then.

The power company is doing a great job of restoring power. It's really impressive.

We had two more bags of ice and gave them to a local woman and her elderly mother. We also topped off one of her gas cans for her generator. We also spread out the word on the food distribution that they didn't know about. Now they know where to get a meal every day.

We took the back road there today and ran into some road closures and washouts along the way. Minor detours, but things are getting better. I was impressed by how many homes survived.

I was also impressed by how some of the unfinished homes collapsed into a pile of cinder blocks. These were walls that had no roof. They literally crumbled to the ground.

Anyway, I'm off to bed now. Goodnight all...

And thanks again, trapper, for helping out.

Tony.

It was no trouble, Tony. Practically on the way to Home Depot. The governor gave a shoutout to Operation BBQ during a press conference today.

Home Depot was well stocked. You know it’s getting better when you could use a couple gas cans and you walk past two pallets worth at Home Depot because you don’t like their spouts. The Midwest cans I like that I ordered from Tractor Supply should be here on Thursday.

The closest Publix was open and my wife got us a couple subs for lunch. They had ice as well. I was able to get gas only two exits south yesterday with only a ten minute wait. The closest stations had 1/2 mile lines this morning.

My dad got power back. The street across the canal has power. We won’t get power until the pole laying on the ground across the street gets replaced. Our line comes under the street from that pole.

Regularly scheduled trash service begins tomorrow which happens to be our trash day.

DeSantis said the Sanibel Causeway will have access by end of October. That is unreal!

https://news.wgcu.org/2022-10-...promised-by-desantis

wtf We waited two years for our bridges to be repaired. Happy for those folks. Too bad for the ferry service. The logistics seemed to have improved since 2005. Of course there is a lot more money in Southwest Florida.

End of October?!! What year?

Jim

quote:

Originally posted by Jimbo54:
End of October?!! What year?

Jim

This year. He isn't playing around. He said you won't want to drive 45 mph on it, but they will have something up while they work on a long-term fix.

quote:

Originally posted by ZSMICHAEL:
wtf We waited two years for our bridges to be repaired. Happy for those folks. Too bad for the ferry service. The logistics seemed to have improved since 2005. Of course there is a lot more money in Southwest Florida.

Easy there Tonto!

These are Temp bridges to allow transport on and off the island for repairs, rescues, etc, it's not a complete replacement of permanent structures.

From the article posted by Ackks, about the bridges

quote:

DeSantis directed FDOT to prioritize repairs to the Causeway, the notice released by Sanibel officials said, and announced that the contract for the bridge repair was awarded.

"These repairs are needed for first responders and Sanibel residents to access the island, as well as other recovery efforts such as power restoration and debris removal," the notice said.

Progress on the similarly breached Matlacha Bridge was noted by DeSantis in the memo and used as encouragement for the Causeway project:

“FDOT has already made tremendous progress on the temporary bridge to Pine Island. Now, I’ve asked them to work with Lee County to immediately begin work to provide temporary access and begin repairs to the Sanibel Causeway. Access to our barrier islands is a priority for our first responders and emergency services who have been working day and night to bring relief to all Floridians affected by Hurricane Ian.”

Hold on Ranger. I got that. We did not even have temporary options. I am not sure why, but the railroad bridge over the bay was done in SIX weeks. PRIVATE COMPANY not the government.

Well Kemosabe!

Private company fixing private property perhaps?

Imagine that its possible the emergency agencies under DeSantis learned from previous storms and modified plans and actions including how to address bridge losses for barrier islands.

Or ya could wait on FEMA to bring you some water...