Hurricane Irma – Part WHEW!

We survived Hurricane Irma!  We live in an area in Southwest Florida where the hurricane hit us as a Category 3 on September 10th.

Gusts up to 140MPH. ​

 

​This was taken as we pulled up to our house for the first time.  We were overwhelmed at the mess in the front yard.

We had to cut away through trees for almost 45 minutes just to get to the front door.

We decided to evacuate to a more hurricane-safe home just ten minutes up the road from our home. I was stubborn and hesitant to leave the comfort of my home, but decided it was the best decision.  I am glad that we did because if we had left our vehicles in our driveway, they would have been crushed by falling trees.  We were also considering moving the vehicles to the back yard where they would have been fine, damage-wise, but we wouldn’t have been able to leave because a tree fell on the gate.

Returning to our home the next day was stressful.  One access street was blocked thanks to a downed live wire.  The other two streets were flooded with downed trees blocking the roads.  I drive a Jeep so I drove over a tree and through the flood water to our home. I couldn’t park my Jeep on our driveway because of a fallen tree, so in the below photo, my Jeep is parked on our front lawn.

As many trees that are on our property, and as many that fell, only one just grazed the house and created minimal damage on the storm gutter. We are so incredibly fortunate.

This is the downed tree that hit the roof and damaged our gutter and is also blocking our garage.

This is the Royal Poinciana in our back yard. I wish I would have taken a photo to show how massive this downed tree is.  It’s fallen over our fence into our neighbor’s yard.

Again, we are so incredibly fortunate that the only damage to the house is to the gutter. We had a close call with flooding with the water reaching only 20 feet from our front door. We went almost 6 days without power.  Power was restored just this morning.  Cleanup begins on Tuesday.  We can’t wait to get back to normal.

Yes, hurricanes are a part of living in Florida, and we are fortunate that it has been 12 years since our last hit (hurricane Wilma).

I hope everyone else in Irma’s path is safe and sound with little to no damage to your homes.
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