Oh, the irony!
The day I’m writing this (one day before publication) is the 11-month anniversary of Hurricane Ian. I haven’t written much about that because, well, who wants to rehash the difficulties and trials in life. I have a philosophy that you get a lot more of the things you focus on, talk about, worry about. I’ve made it a practice to focus on positive things, talk about possibilities, and worry about very little. Yes, there are things in life you can’t change, and must deal with, but I view those things as bumps in the road of life. They are transitory. They do not define me or my life, so I process and move past the challenges as quickly as possible.
Today a crew showed up to start rebuilding our pool cage, pretty much the last of the repairs from the damage caused by Hurricane Ian. Of all the things lost during that mega-storm, we’ve missed the pool cage the most. After the cage is back up, the only thing left to repair are the gutters. The same company doing the cage is also replacing all the gutters.
But today, we’re waiting again for another hurricane, predicted to arrive mid-week.
Since we lived through the 150+ miles per hour of sustained wind generated by the Cat 5 (upgraded after the fact) Hurricane Ian, the wind doesn’t scare me too much. What really gives me the heebie jeebies about hurricanes is the storm surge. Remember the devastation to the Ft Myers and Sanibel Island areas after Ian? That was far worse from both a loss of life and property damage standpoint than the wind damage. And the storm surge is worse on the right side of the hurricane which is where we are now on the projected path of what will be named Hurricane Idalia (what is it with the I-named hurricanes: Irma, Ian, Ike, Isadore, Ivan, Igor…in fact, the most retired hurricanes starting with the same letter is I (14 I names are retired). As of this morning, the surge is predicted to be small enough in our area to not be too concerning, but I think everyone in our area has a little bit of PTSD, whether they acknowledge it or not. Including me. I felt the same way for quite a long time after the tornado in 2003.
Right now the only thing we can do is prepare for the worst. I’m doing laundry (I always do it on Mondays anyway), I froze some blocks of ice yesterday, Randy’s checking and prepping the generator, just in case. Because we’ve been through as bad as it should ever get in our lifetime (barring storm surge) I feel fairly confident that we’ll be just fine no matter what happens with the wind. But Lord knows I don’t want to go through all that again.
Last year, while waiting for Hurricane Ian, I wrote a post that described what it was like being stalked by a turtle. You can read that here. It was a good exercise to read that again with the advantage of hindsight. I was nervous then and, as it turns out, with good reason. Today we’re outside the cone of uncertainty, quite a bit outside. But as we are reminded on every Facebook update, and every weatherperson update, Hurricane Charley took a great big turn to the west about 6 hours before landfall and landed square in the crosshairs of and thoroughly wrecked Punta Gorda, a town very near us, in 2004. I’m a bit anxious, as in, let’s get this behind us. But I’m not nervous.
At this moment, the worst of it for us is supposed to start on Tuesday afternoonish. Which means, if all goes well, by bedtime we should be back able to relax enough to sleep. I did have a beach day planned on Wednesday afternoon, but I imagine beaches will be unsafe for a few days. I can still get together and enjoy the time with my friend whether we’re on the beach or not though. If all goes well.
As I said in my first post after Ian, two weeks after the storm, (when you choose to live in Florida) we’re in this, no matter what. You just do what needs to be done and get on with the good living in paradise, which is 99.99% of the time.
I got a call to reschedule my Wednesday doctor appointment. They’re closing the office, which makes some sense since our weather radio just alerted and we are now under a Tropical Storm Warning. The good news…it’s not a Hurricane Warning. The latest update shows the storm shifting a little west. And though I hate that for anyone who will end up with worse effects than we have, I’m glad it’s looking better for us.
This too shall pass.
This too shall pass.
This too shall pass.
Now I’m going to go do something normal and see if I can forget about the upcoming storm for a little while.
See you on the other side.
P.S. As the weather is updated every 6 hours, the hurricane is strengthening EXPLOSIVELY (according to Accuweather), but it’s also shifting westward, so away from us. Pray for those in its path like we were during Ian, and for the coastal towns that will take the brunt of the storm surge.
P.P.S. As I post this on Tuesday morning, the storm is scheduled to get here today, and the crew showed up to keep working on the cage. The most recent image above of the track (I marked a red X where we are on the map) shows that we are probably going to have minimal impact. I pray for those who will be more severely affected.
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