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.
Oh my gosh! I’m glad you’re okay! Those pictures are crazy. So sorry that happened to you guys ❤️ I can’t imagine having to clean all those trees up
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Thank you so much! It was an intense storm! While we did a little bit of clean up, we had to hire a service because some of the trees were dangerous to be near. Hoping we can end this hurricane season now! November can’t come fast enough! ❤
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I am glad that you are safe and there was not too much damage to your actual house. It must have been a nightmare dealing with the trees, but you seemed really prepared and that paid off.
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Thank you so much! Tomorrow the trees get cleaned up. I can’t wait because it’s been horrible just looking out front and seeing such a mess, and then looking out in the back yard and seeing a mess. I can’t complain because we are very lucky! Thank you for your sweet comment! ❤
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You’re welcome. 🙂
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what city????
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Hi. I’m in Bonita Springs. We made out better than the Keys. Were you affected?
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