Tropical Storm Debby is sideswiping us this morning. We’re in no danger here (we’re the blue dot on the first picture) but it’s going to be wet. All day, it looks like. We were awakened by the rain, light by Florida storm standards. The pool’s not even full. Yet.
And as proof of how much of a non-event this is in the life of seasoned Floridians, it was only a few minutes before we heard….lawmowers and weed whackers (???) running! Sure enough, this crew was tending to our neighbor’s lawn. I got soaked getting the photo. But it was worth it to get a laugh out of you at this slice of life in Florida.
P.S. The grass he’s parked on is NOT the neighbor’s lawn. It’s an empty lot between our two houses. So it really wasn’t as urgent as it looks.
After Hurricane Ian in September 2022, I didn’t write much about the experience of riding out our first hurricane. I knew people wanted to know we were ok, and I said enough about it on this blog and social media to make sure they knew we were.
To be honest, I don’t like to talk much about bad stuff that happens. I’m a firm believer in the concept that you get more of what you talk about. Some call that concept the law of attraction but that’s not why I don’t mention bad stuff much. It’s just that I’d rather leave the negative junk in my life behind me. I like the old adage “Don’t look back, you’re not going that way.” Talking about the crap that happens to us just refreshes it. Me…I’m done with it and much prefer to move forward to new and better stuff.
Still, as I sat in the house on Sunday while Tropical Storm Debby sideswiped us, I couldn’t help thinking about how different the experience of this storm and Hurricane Ian were for me.
Ian was a monster, nearly a CAT 5, hurricane. The eye (and eyewall) passed right over us. In contrast, the unorganized center of Debby was about 100 miles offshore in the Gulf of Mexico. Most of its activity was on the right side (her dirty side in weather-speak) and the feeder bands of wind and rain covered nearly the entire state of Florida when she was offshore near Tampa. Only the far west of the Florida panhandle was unaffected.
I wrote a blog post in September 2022 while waiting for Hurricane Ian where I described feeling like we were being stalked by a turtle. You can read it here. We weren’t too worried back then. But once Ian got into the Gulf it underwent a “rapid intensification.” According to information on the internet, rapid intensification is a rare phenomenon, but likely to become more frequent in years to come. Really? Why more frequent in years to come? I have my own ideas about that, but since this blog strives to stay fairly neutral on topics of politics and religion, I’ll keep those to myself.
That rapid intensification, from a CAT 1 to nearly a CAT 5 in about 36 hours, took a lot of people by surprise. We’re surrounded by water where we live and in a situation like this, once the winds get to 40 mph, they close the bridges. Before we realized how bad Ian was going to be, we were stuck riding it out. Here’s what I did write about the experience a few weeks after going through the hell Hurricane Ian became.
When the beginnings of what was eventually named Debby began to form down in the Caribbean last week, we were alert but not worried. One of the more popular Tampa TV meteorologists (Denis Phillips) has a list of Hurricane Rules. He’s constantly stressing Rule #7 – Don’t Freak Out. But there’s a certain amount of stress that lingers after going through an experience like a tornado or CAT 5 hurricane (no one can convince me that Ian wasn’t a CAT 5 when it was pounding the crap out of us for 12 hours). I was wary and anxious for the updates every time they came out. Randy and I haven’t talked about this much, but I don’t think I’m willing to ride out another hurricane in the house.
The storm, which didn’t get a name until it was nearly due west of the Florida Keys, thankfully didn’t undergo rapid intensification (although I wasn’t convinced it wouldn’t at the last minute) and its structure was pretty disorganized. I don’t understand it all very well, but apparently a disorganized storm is far less dangerous than one that’s organized. Makes some sense because that’s the same with anything in life. A disorganized person is far less a “force of nature” than a highly organized one that can get a hell of a lot of things done.
So, I knew we were “only” going to experience a tropical storm over the weekend. I kept thinking of it in the same way I remember thinking of snowstorms as a kid in Wisconsin. We knew they were coming, and we knew we were going to be housebound for a period of time. We always kind of looked forward to it with a little bit of a sense of excitement. It was different, something to break the monotony of winter life in Wisconsin. These storms ruin the monotony of paradise in Florida. And geez, I can’t even believe I have the slightest inkling to call paradise in Florida monotonous.
I was actually looking forward to being housebound over the weekend. I had books to read, a crochet project to work on, podcasts to listen to, puzzles to assemble, and plenty of food to eat. I wouldn’t be bored, and though housebound is kind of a relative term in Florida, I knew it was a short-term weather event, unlike Ian which, though the raging weather moved on, left a legacy of nearly a year of recovery activities.
There are a lot of us in Florida who rely on a fellow named Wayne Sallade for the best storm prep info. Wayne now lives in Colorado (go figure) but he’s the former Director of Emergency Management for Charlotte County. Though retired, Wayne is still serving the folks in this area by using Facebook to be an interpreter for all Florida storm-related matters. Wayne let us know this storm would be more water than wind related, just rain and storm surge, so I felt like it would be a walk in the park for us.
It kinda, sorta, was a walk in the park, but even I got dang tired of the rain. It rained for almost 3 days straight. There was just over 6 inches of rain in our rain gauge when it was all over, EXACTLY what was predicted by the weather guessers for our area. I thanked God (more than once) that I wasn’t still in Wisconsin because, on average, 1 inch of rain equates to 13 inches of snow. I would have hated to be facing 6 and a half feet of snow this morning.
We did stay housebound for the most part during those 3 days. There was a lot more flooding in this area (as reported on social media since I don’t watch the news) than I expected. That surprised me, mostly because I don’t understand storm surge. I’m going to do some studying about it after this. I feel bad for those people who have to contact their insurance companies about flooding again. Not to mention the horrible mess that flooding leaves in its wake. Surprisingly, and sadly, the roadway at Middle Beach in Englewood, which was repaired from the Hurricane Idalia damage just 9 months ago (yes, just 9 months ago) was damaged again over the weekend. I guess building a road with a sand base on the very edge of a barrier island isn’t the best idea ever.
Finally….after I was already in bed last night, the last band moved through. This morning, waking up to a blazing sun was almost weird, like we’d forgotten what the sun was like after only 3 days. The sun and all the rain of the past three days turned our outside world into a sauna. I stepped out onto the lanai this morning and the moist heat took my breath away.
I’m going to take a wild guess and say that, on average, we have about 30 days of less than ideal, sometimes wild, weather here in Florida. Using those handy math skills I learned in school, that equates to less than 20% of the time where the weather in Florida doesn’t resemble what I describe as paradise.
That’s my kind of heaven on earth.
P.S. I posted the picture and comment above on Facebook the morning the rain started. It did get plenty of laughs.
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