Half The Deck

Bracing For Jeanne

It's Friday night nearing 10pm. Hurricane Jeanne is predicted to make landfall in Fort Pierce at approximately 2am Sunday morning. Looks like it's going to be another bumpy ride.

I got home from work around 6:30pm today and dug right into the hurricane preparations. Most the windows have already been boarded up - we've got two front windows and the front door that we'll do tomorrow. We still wanted a little fresh air and sunlight today. Tonight is mainly picking and choosing some things to protect from possible water damage should we lose the roof or portions of it. So far I've gathered some clothing (including shoes), some family momentos and medical supplies. These items have been placed into plastic bins or garbage bags. I've done a lot of looking around at which trees may pose a threat to the house. I figure the highest amount of concern I have is with the southeast corner of the house. This is where the "fun room" is located. Carried the speakers out tonight. Dang they are heavy! I smacked my hip into the corner of the ping pong table on the way out - so I tried to quickly step away from it - which resulted in me banging my toe on a concrete block (had to bring the patio lights inside which are bolted to the blocks). I now have a very pretty bruised toe. I considered callin for a helicopter to evacuate me, but decided to stay tough and work through the pain ;)

Around midnight tonight, Nancy will come home and we'll begin attempting to brace the garage with some 2x4's on the inside. Tomorrow we'll line the cars up in front in hopes of avoiding having the garage door cave in from the pressure of the wind. For those who don't know, this is one of the most susceptible portions of the house. When the garage door goes, the roof will soon follow - that is actually one of the main reasons people lose their roofs.

I'm oddly calm through this whole process. I was pretty freaked out during preparations for Hurricane Frances only 3 weeks ago. I did some serious praying last night and asked the Lord to keep me calm. He's done a great job!

So, we'll finish up with the last minute preparations tomorrow before the winds start kicking in. We're reaching the point where all we can do is sit and wait. To those reading, please feel free to say some prayers that all in the path of the storm stay safe and out of harm's way.

Probably won't have time to blog tomorrow, although I'll try - permitting the power holds up.

Stay safe all.

posted by Putnam Pig @ 9:51 PM 1 comments

Hurricane Jeanne

What the @#$@?
Not again...



Hopefully it's still early enough that the computer models will shift away from the east coast of Florida. What a ride it's been this year. Well, at least I won't have to worry about my screen porch blowing down any more. :)

Oh, and the every third hurricane streak may now be over. Here's how it's panned out for Florida impacted hurricanes this year:

Alex...Bonnie..Charley (hit)
Danielle...Earl....Frances (hit)
Gaston...Hermine...Ivan (hit)
Jeanne...Karl...Lisa

Hermine? What's up with that name? Actually, speaking of naming hurricanes, it's actually a very interesting thing to learn about. Here's some information from the National Oceanic and Atmosphereic Administration:

Atlantic Names

Experience shows that the use of short, distinctive given names in written as well as spoken communications is quicker and less subject to error than the older more cumbersome latitude-longitude identification methods. These advantages are especially important in exchanging detailed storm information between hundreds of widely scattered stations, coastal bases, and ships at sea.

Since 1953, Atlantic tropical storms have been named from lists originated by the National Hurricane Center and now maintained and updated by an international committee of the World Meteorological Organization. The lists featured only women's names until 1979, when men's and women's names were alternated. Six lists are used in rotation. Thus, the 2004 list will be used again in 2010.

The only time that there is a change in the list is if a storm is so deadly or costly that the future use of its name on a different storm would be inappropriate for reasons of sensitivity. If that occurs, then at an annual meeting by the WMO committee (called primarily to discuss many other issues) the offending name is stricken from the list and another name is selected to replace it.

Several names have been changed since the lists were last used. Four namesfrom the 1995 list have been retired. On the 2001 list, Lorenzo has replacedLuis, Michelle has replaced Marilyn, Olga has replaced Opal, and Rebekah has replaced Roxanne. Three names from the 1996 list have been retired. On the2002 list, Cristobal has replaced Cesar, Fay has replaced Fran, and Hanna has replaced Hortense. Two names from the 1998 list have been retired. On the 2004 list, Gaston has replaced Georges and Matthew has replaced Mitch.On the 2006 list, Kirk has replaced Keith. Here is more information on the retirement of hurricane names.

posted by Putnam Pig @ 1:19 AM 0 comments

Hurricane Frances Aftermath

Well, we made it through the storm with only mild damage. But most importantly - we made it through the storm!

The screen enclosure surrounding our pool came crashing down. It laid over the pool and in the yard. To see how the winds twisted and ripped the aluminum was impressive to say the least. It was a twisted mess still somewhat connected together. The funny part is that with everything that came down, one door was left standing in the closed position. What a little trooper that door was, refusing to leave it's post. We saved it. :) What a bear to get all those pieces apart and out of the yard.

The wooden privacy fence is leaning, cracked and looks like it's ready to call it a day. It's still standing enough to keep the dogs in the yard. That's a good thing, because trying to leash 3 dogs and take them out to do their dog duties is not a fun thing.

The roof suffered some mild damage. Missing quite a few shingles. The good side of this is that we really needed to replace the roof anyway and couldn't afford to right now. Thank you Frances for at least helping us out with getting this home improvement project taken care of for us.

Riding out the storm was not a fun event - and definitely one I don't wish to do again any time soon. At 11am Saturday morning, we lost power. It was time to fire up the radio and flashlights. Throughout the day, we continued to get as many belongings as possible into waterproof containers and garbage bags. Half the time I think I walked around in circles just not quite sure what to do any more. At 8pm Saturday night, the announcement came across the radio to get into your "safe room". I wondered how safe it could really be if the roof and walls got ripped away. So off we went - 2 adults, 3 dogs and 1 cat into the bathroom closet. With no power, it quickly got quite hot in there. Throughout the night, we expanded our safe room to include part of the bathroom as well. We had a mattress nearby in case we needed to take cover under it. We set up cushions and a sheet to cover them on the floor of the closet (err, it's a walk in closet). It was about as comfortable as you can make a small space, I suppose.

By 10pm, the winds were noticably picking up speed. Every now and then we would get brave and venture out of the bathroom and into the living room. The winds and noises of objects pelting the roof were much louder out here. I kept my trips to the living room to a minimum so I didn't freak myself out too much.

As midnight drew closer, the winds were howling over the roof. Some people say it sounds like a train. I never heard a noises that I would say sounded like this. I would more relate it to the low roar of a jet - that just wouldn't let up. It seemed like non-stop hours upon hours without a break. It was a situation where you just wanted a break from the sounds just to catch your breath. Part of what makes the ordeal so difficult is that the windows are boarded up - you can't see anything that is happening. All you can do is listen to the sounds. We could hear things pelting the wood covering the windows. Every once in a while you'd hear something that was a bit louder than the "normal" sounds. Those made us nervous. Then there were the sounds on the roof. You could hear things skipping and bouncing on the roof. My mind began to conjure up images on branches and tree limbs bombarding the roof. I wonder if one would make it's way through and start causing the roof to rip apart.

By 1am Sunday morning the eye of the storm was making landfall. The radio broadcasts told people to buckle up because the worst was yet to come. We got a bit lucky around 2 or 3am since we did get a bit of the eye of the storm and we had a brief break from the chaos. We got brave and actually went into the garage to make sure everything in there was okay. We even peeked outside to see what damage there was. At this point, the screen porch was still standing (thank goodness, because if it was down at this point, I would have been freaking out during the second half of the storm). There were quite a few tree limbs and branches throughout the back yard. We actually ran out to try to place them in a more secure spot (between standing trees and the fence, wedged in there..... and some in the garage). We didn't particularly want the house to get torpedoed by these items.

The winds picked up again, so back to the safe room we went. I tried to sleep, but could only get small naps in. The second half of the storm didn't actually seem as bad to me. I think partially because I was somewhat used to the noises, and also because I was just exhausted by this point. The dogs pretty much slept through the entire thing (2 of them thanks to the fact that we gave them a mild tranquilizer that we got from the vet). I think they just liked the fact that we were all camping out together. I'm just glad they weren't nervous.

By 7am, the worst was over. The winds and rains still persisted, but the violent winds seemed to have subsided. We ventured out to see how we made out. At this point, we were able to see the damage. I think we actually took the worst damage of the neighborhood from what I can see.... but honestly, we didn't care. We were just happy we made it through.

posted by Putnam Pig @ 10:47 PM 0 comments