Hurricane Charley (advent)

[YawgmothsAvatar]

Hey everybody,

Just in case you haven't picked up a newspaper or turned on the news anytime lately, a hurricane just hit.

For those of you who don't know, I live in Tampa. I don't really like it here, because it is outrageously hot all the time and rains every day. The rain, of course, is only baby steps above the regular air in terms of ounces of water per cubic inch. Anyway, back to the hurricane.

The first estimates put the eye of the storm approximately in my kitchen, which is bad. The tidal surge estimates were ten to fourteen feet. I live about eight feet above sea-level and about one hundred and fifty feet from water.

Picture the interior of your house.
Now picture the interior of your house with 2--6 feet of seawater sloshing around.

Needless to say, I was worried.

We boarded the windows, raised the furniture, and packed all of the irreplacable things into the van. When we got the order to evacuate, we headed to Orlando.

Those of you who know how the hurricane moved are already laughing.

The hotel we were staying in was seven stories high with rooms only around the edges. The center was open all the way down. The ceiling had a few large windows to let in the light. We went up to our room at the top floor and flipped on the TV. The various meteorologists on the different stations were saying that an air front coming from the west might push the hurricane east. 'Yes!' we shouted, 'Hit Naples or something!'

The patterns of the hurricane changed then. It then moved the predicted eye of the storm squarely on (You guessed it!) Orlando. There was something mildly dissatisfying about evacuating into the path of the hurricane.

Later in the night, the power went out. You have not seen craziness till you are in a hotel with no power. I was thankfully in my room when it happened, but I could hear people shouting from the lobby area seven stories below me. The winds picked up and we could hear debris clattering on the roof. It was not a fun night.

Tampa was, of course, untouched by the hurricane. The signs for elections were still in the ground.

I think there are three reasons why it hit Orlando instead of Tampa:
1. We were in Orlando.
2. We were prepared.
3. Meteorologists said it would hit Tampa.

In the end, no one in my family was hurt, the house is as good as we left it, and we probably got less rain then we would have gotten on a normal day.

[(Q)]

Glad to hear you're Ok.

[Lightkeeper]

Happy you are safe and sound. You sound like a writer. You could publish this story.

[Rex]

Great write up.. made me laugh a bit.. hehe

[Ceridwen018]

That was quite entertaining! It's good that your house lucked out...you seemed to get all the adventure of living through a hurricane but none of the damages, that's awesome!

My family has a house on Sanibel Island...Sanibel got beat up a bit by Charley, and is still evacuated right now, but I'm optimistic...

[linwood]

I`m in Sarasota so I can relate to the "scary" part.

I know alot of people who went to Orlando for safety and ended up in the direct path anyway.
Alot of them felt pretty silly for doing so but the way I see it is a cat. 2 storm in Orlando far from any storm surge is a heck of alot better than a cat. 4 storm in Tampa bay with 10 feet of storm surge because as far as anyone could tell right up until an hour or so before it hit it could have hit anywhere from Tampa to Naples.

Glad to hear everything worked out ok.

[YawgmothsAvatar]

Thanks Rex, Lightkeeper and Cerdiwan.

Cerdiwan, I hope that everything will work out. What is your elevation?

[Ceridwen018]

Elevation? I dunno actually, but from my own personal judgement, I'd say about 8 feet, LOL.

Things look like they're going to be fine--the electricity is out on the island and the water is undrinkable, but aerial reports say that there hasn't been much roof damage and stuff like that. We'll have one hell of a clean-up job, but nothing I can't handle!