Well, this hurricane season is already starting to be different than any other that we have been through yet. August 12th, Hurricane Charley starting making his way towards us. We were all getting prepared for the worst, since he was supposed to hit on Tampa Bay and go across the state. After work was over, everyone went their separate ways to try and make their love ones and possessions as safe as possible. When I got home we started our hurricane prepardness by bringing everything we could find outside, in. Then the neighbors next door, Jim and Holly, were kind enough to lend us there fencing to board up our windows. We also helped them put up the fencing up onto their windows as well. Neighbors from across the street, came across to help us out. We bought water, food, batteries and anything else that we thought we might need. Will it be enough, we hoped so. While doing our storm watching, Charley decided to turn at the last minute and instead of hitting the Tampa Bay side where everyone was prepared that it was going to hit, he decided to hit at Ponte Gorda (south of Tampa) and cut across towards Orlando, Kissimmee and St. Cloud. The problem there is that no one thought it would hit there and not many people were prepared for him to visit their end of town. Homes were devastated, trees were torn out from the ground, roots and all, it was something that hadn't been seen in the areas that it went through in a long time. We were the 'lucky' ones. We received the tornadoes, heavy rain and not much else. A fellow co-worker in St. Cloud had trees come down at his house, power outage for a while, but thankfully all is okay.
A fellow co-worker of my husbands had lost power for over 10 days and lost part of her roof of her house...but on the bright side she found two baby squirrels to take care of. Unfortunately one past away, but the other is still doing great. She brings it to work and feeds him with an eye dropper and is helping him along since his parents are no where to be found.
At my office, we had minimal damage...but our fabrication shop in Lake Wales is a totally different story. The roof caved in and blew away and all of the equipment was exposed to the weather. Our guys had to pull everything we could from there and bring it up to our Disney office to keep it from getting stolen.Even though there were SO MANY bad stories and things happening to so many people...there were so many things that I found to be so sweet during this catastrophe. People seemed to have been even nicer than usual to each other. Neighbors came out and helped everyone who needed it like they were part of their family. One woman we knew lost all of her supplies to craft with along with most of her apartment, and our crafting group decided to send anything and everything her way to help her out.
After Charley, my husband and I decided that we were so lucky to have not been hit directly with the hurricane but wondered what would happen when the next one came along. So we ordered a generator, a window air conditioner, more flashlights, batteries, all the plywood for each window all labeled and bolts in the house for the wood...and wat do you know, another hurricane is on its way.Hurricane Frances is hitting now as I speak, it has reached the coast and is going so slow that it will last all weekend. This hurricane we are ready for. We have prepared as much as we can and that's all that we can do. Frances is bigger than the whole state of Florida, so everyone is going to feel this one wherever they are. Again, the neighbors and friends and family have been so supportive to each other. Helping out whenever and wherever they can. In my mind, I wish that everyone would be this close all the time, but am so grateful that we come together when we need to. I am sure that I will be adding on to this entry...but for right now I will leave it as it is. I just pray that everyone is safe and okay when this is all over. My thoughts are with everyone. Take care!
