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| Category: Being In The Flow |
Date published: August 22, 2004 |
A Hurricane Experience Aug 04 in Charley's Eye - We Decided to Stay!
by Gale Studna
Charley was predicted to come close to us. We talked about leaving and even had reservations for two rooms in a nearby hotel. They would have accepted Baxter, our beloved Beagle. We would never leave without him.
We talked more and decided to stay. It was mostly Joe, but I agreed with him. Our friend, Carol, did not. He said if something does happen, we will be here to handle it, maybe even start a repair if needed. The storm surge is most scary since we are only 8.5 feet above sea level.
Sanibel and the barrier islands were evacuated yesterday. This is now Friday morning, August 13, 2004. Ironic being Friday the 13th? We hope that is not a bad omen.
So far, it looks like a normal day out there from what I can see with all the hurricane shutters down and windows shut. The storm is presently west of Key West. It should hit off our coast around 3PM this afternoon. However, since the unusually higher than normal high tide is predicted for 2PM, that sounds better to me. It was supposed to be off our coast right at high tide. Still expected to make landfall near Tampa Bay.
I have been praying we will be okay and that it was not a mistake to stay. Carol is still saying we should leave, however, where would there be any available hotels at this late time?
I plan to write more during the day as long as the power is on. And I will write more once it is restored if we have a home! Yes, I am trying to be positive, but it is not easy at times.
10:10AM: Looks like it is heading now due north which means closer to our coastline; and stronger winds and surge are possible. Carol thinks we should still leave. I am nervous now and have begun to ache all over. I really don't wish to deal with such disagreements today. She even made a $10 bet with Joe that we will have water in the living room. I sure hope he wins!
Should be another update from National Hurricane Center at 11. They and we are hoping the 82.9-degree location goes to 83 degrees, as that would mean a location further out in the Gulf.
Just got word it is a Category 3 and headed right for us. We wanted to leave but, when we called the emergency number, they said "No." Conditions might be worse with flash flooding, and so they advised us to stay at home now, get into an interior room and pile blankets around us. Now I am so scared. I've never been this scared. Why didn't we leave? Given the chance again, I believe we would. May God protect us.
Monday, August 16, 2004, I am now back online and will continue to tell the story of Charley.
We all stayed in the family room with a mattress propped up by the bar in case we all had to get under it. It was a very scary two hours listening to the wind and the door to the attic banging up and down. Joe kept trying to keep it still by putting duck tape on, but it didn't hold. We will need to get that reinforced, for sure. We had the roof reinforced from the inside after Andrew to bring it up to code.
It was actually over quite quickly. We still had a roof with only a couple of shingles off. Some of the soffit is off, too, but that, too, is minor. One of our orange trees is split and will need to be removed as well as one or two palms that are almost out of the ground. Minor again! We are blessed and lucky and all the rest! We went outside and saw our neighbors. All had similar stories and, thankfully, minor damage. No one was hurt or killed, thank goodness!
Water is on our lanai but it did not reach even halfway up the driveway. There's no water in house! Carol owes Joe $10.
After one night with no air conditioning, Joe could not take it. He and I decided to try to find a hotel with power. Carol decided to stay here with Baxter. She got ice and kept herself cool that way.
Meanwhile, Joe and I got in Carol's car and hit the road. Carol, our neighbor, Kathy, and I were able to get the heavy garage door to open up. We propped it with a ladder and another pole. Since Bing (my Chevy Tracker, dark red in color) had a hot outlet to let Carol keep her phone charged, we decided to take her car. So off we went. We stopped south of Sarasota to find out that all the hotels were full. They gave us the name of one in downtown Tampa that was offering a rate of $69 for Charley-related guests. Because of Joe's heart condition, we qualified. So, we drove up I75 to see lots of power trucks and emergency relief trucks heading south. What a heartwarming sight.
During our trip, we heard about tornado warnings right for the area where we were headed. Thank God (once again!) we didn't encounter any. We arrived, after getting lost in downtown Tampa. What else is new? It was dark and raining, but we found this very nice hotel right next to the Performing Arts Center. We had a lovely room on the 9th floor with a king bed. They held the restaurant open for us. We had the best cheeseburgers in a long while. They were juicy, greasy and tasted really good. Just what we needed after that ride (lucky us!). Imagine so many not so lucky...
Didn't sleep well since we still could not communicate with Carol. Cell lines as well as Sprint lines were down. During the evening, I discovered I didn't pack one of Joe's heart pills! Oh dear! Early Sunday morning, we called the VA Hospital in Tampa and went over there and went in through the ER. Over two hours later, we had five pills and were told it had been okay for him to skip one pill, but be sure to take one that evening, which he did. Meanwhile, the hotel was offering another night, this time down to $39! By now, with no power at home, we decided to stay the additional night.
Sunday evening, we were finally able to reach Carol by cell phone. All was well there, too, and she and Baxter were keeping cool by using ice and sitting in Bing for short periods with the AC on. Baxter loved it in the car especially since it was not moving. J
Joe and I drove over to El Centro at Ybor City. Had a nice dinner at Big City Grill and then saw Collateral at the movie theater. We then had ice cream at Marble Creamery, a place similar to Stone Cold where they pull and not scoop and mix with whatever you wish. Joe had a vanilla malt. How original of him. I had amaretto ice cream with pistachio mixins in a Butterfinger waffle cone. Delic!
How wonderful we could spend some enjoyable time after such a fright! When we returned to the hotel, it was mobbed with disaster relief folks. I asked one lady where they were from, and she said Jacksonville. I thanked them for coming. They were headed to Cape Coral, but darkness forced them into the hotel for the night. They were gone early this morning.
On TV last night, the damage was shown at the airport in Orlando. Three of four of the airsides were damaged with glass broken all over the place. Flights were cancelled etc. Charley went right through the state. Had we gone to Winter Haven, we might have been right in the path. God IS watching over us.
Joe and I are home now. Carol had called last night to report power on, finally. Again, we were so lucky. Some many thousands in our county and Charlotte County are still without power.
I wanted to write this down while it was fresh in my mind. I know this is the price we pay to live where we don't have to shovel snow. We know this is a possibility every year. We are still blessed.
How great we can be among those who are blessed! It did not have to go this way, for sure.
Gale 8/16/04
Postscript to Charley---About 3PM on August 16, we lost power again! Boy did it get hot fast. Tried calling LCEC (Lee County Electric Cooperative), but the same message was on as before the storm. So, Joe and I got into the car and drove out to North Fort Myers to the main building. I thought I would surely run into somebody to talk with. Sure enough, two wonderful ladies were just coming out of the building. They took down the information and told us they would relay it. We then tried to drive to Pine Island but only residents were allowed in. We drove to the Yacht Club to watch the sunset, but the roof was half off the building and access was blocked. We came home and began to sweat! Dirk came over with a generator and hooked it up to our refrigerator and a fan. Joe tried to sleep in the family room with the fan but was not comfortable for long with Baxter with him. Baxter tends to snuggle when he is nervous.
About 5AM I heard a loud noise and saw Joe closing the window. The power was back on! Had a bad migraine and took more Fiorinal and slept until 10AM. The power is still on I am happy to report, and it is now nighttime.
Around noon, Joe and I were on our way to the post office when we found a lady who had just fallen on our street. She was bleeding from the head and knee. Someone else had stopped and called 911. We got some towels to put on as a compress. Joe went to her house to get her purse. We followed her to the ER and waited until they stitched her up. She is leaving in the morning for Maine for her summer home and to attend the wedding of a Grandson in two weeks. She is 85 and looks in her 60s. Mary is her name, and we kidded her about wanting to meet new people. We got her home and she was very appreciative and wanted our name and number. She walks twice a day because of her bad heart.
Even though this was not a good thing for Mary, it could have been worse, and we were glad we were there to help. A feel-good day for me. We could help when so many are suffering. We performed a Mitzvah right in the middle of disaster!
Post-Post script on August 19, 2004: We finally got Cable and Internet back at 5PM. I am a happy back online camper.
So there is a way to survive the Eye of the Storm, but let's not test the limits! Experience can be the best teacher...
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In My Own Words: Out-of-the-Ordinary Experiences
