Hurricane Helene passed about 160 miles west of us out in the Gulf of Mexico yesterday. She was another monster storm, just 2 days before the 2 year anniversary of Hurricane Ian. Many of the same people devastated during Ian are reeling this morning from another knock-out punch. Thankfully, we aren’t among them.
In our area, the wind wasn’t the main issue. It was storm surge. Officials warned about it and issued evacuation orders for the barrier islands, low lying and flood prone areas, and mobile homes. I know many didn’t think it would be this bad but Facebook last night was full of posts of homes in Englewood and Grove City that were flooded from storm surge. Houses are flooded, vehicles are stuck and stranded, and it is a mess. It breaks my heart. Worse, north of us, officials were calling Helene storm surge “unsurvivable” and issuing warnings to people who stayed to write their names and other important information on their arm or leg in permanent marker to they can be identified after they died.
This morning I heard that the storm surge in our county was the highest in 99 years. That’s not something to be proud of or excited about. We only had a couple inches of rain here, and are far enough inland that storm surge did not affect us at all. The wind howled for several hours, but I think it was about a third of what we experienced during Ian. We never lost power and even during the 10 or so tornado warning alerts last night didn’t have to take shelter in our master bedroom closet. So this morning, we are good. And grateful. Randy and I are going to see if there’s anything we can do to be helpful to our community today.
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