Hurricane Irma had to be the scariest storm I’ve ever witnessed. I’ve lived in Central Florida all my life and have been through many hurricanes and tropical storms, but none of those compare with Irma. She was a monster!
Before Hurricane Irma
The week before Hurricane Irma hit Florida she was roaring across the Caribbean devastating everything in her path. Irma had grown into a gigantic category 5 storm that had its eye on Florida. Everyday I diligently followed the local news and Mike’s Weather Page on social media. The computer models would flip and flop across Florida during every run. But as the days went on, it looked more and more certain that Florida would not be spared Irma’s wrath.
For the first time in the ten years we have lived in our current house we decided to purchase plywood and board up. A year ago Hurricane Matthew skirted the east coast of Florida. After that storm, I vowed we would never go through another hurricane without boarding up. My wonderful husband braved the hardware stores at 6:30am to buy those boards for us. What a guy!
Meanwhile, the kids and I prepared the house. We brought in everything from outside. I bottled up tons of water and froze bags of water. The pantry was fully stocked with non-perishable foods. We prepared our storm room, which was the best thing we ever did while building our house. Laundry was done. All electrical devices were charged. Our travel trailer tanks were filled with water, as was our master bath garden tub. We were as prepared as we could be!
Time to hunker down
By Saturday, it looked certain that Florida would get a visit from Irma. The massive storm would cover the entire state with her fury. We were hunkered down and ready for just about anything. Conditions really started going down hill on Sunday afternoon. Hurricane Irma was forecast to track up the western side of Florida, putting us on the “dirty side”. The front right quadrant is often referred to as the “dirty side”, it has the most tornadic activity. It held up to its reputation, the tornado warnings started rolling in one after another.
Possible tornado
As darkness fell, we decided to try to get some sleep. The girls and I pulled a mattress into our storm room and tried to drown out the noise with a sound machine. The guys slept nearby in the bedroom. It wasn’t long until we were alerted to yet another tornado warning. Soon afterwards I started hearing a distance rumbling that was getting closer and closer. It finally ended with a violent blast of wind against the house. It was the strongest gust we had the entire storm. I’ve always heard that when a tornado is approaching it sounds like an approaching freight train. This sounded just like that. Thankfully, we received no damage to the house. Just one tree fell. Even with that huge gusts we didn’t lose power until a couple hours later.
After the “dirty side” passed by, it got noticeably quieter. The wind was still howling, but the rain had stopped. Our power finally went out about 2:00am. As daybreak approached, we finally were able to get a little bit of sleep. By 7:30 Monday morning we were all ready to see what Hurricane Irma had done to our house and yard. God truly blessed us! We had no damage to our house and only two trees had fallen. The yard was littered with small branches and was flooded from the 11 inches of rain that had fallen. Our travel trailer still sat in its spot with only a hatch cover blown off.
Aftermath
In the days after Irma we sweat a lot. We were without power for 2 1/2 days. Family members 20 miles south went the entire week without power. We raked and gathered tons of debris. Overall our area was extremely lucky. The damage could have been so much worse. Other parts of Florida weren’t as lucky as us. The Caribbean islands and the Keys were devastated. A week later we have returned to our normal lives. The flooded yard is one of the only reminders of the terrible storm.
It was exciting!