Yes. It's enough to make one want to move much further away. Maybe as far away as another state.
I can handle category 1 and 2, but when the numbers start heading into category 3 .... that's when it becomes much more dangerous.
When Hurricane Frances hit, it wasn't too bad. We had roof damage, trees were down, we lost electricity, etc. But the damage was much less than we feared it would be before the storm hit. And then Jeanne came along a few weeks later. She skirted up the coast and turned to go out to the deep ocean. We thought we were safe. Everyone was sighing a big sigh of relief. That was very short-lived. Jeanne did the craziest thing .... she did a loop around and came right back at us. Hit us hard.
My town was unrecognizable after Jeannne. It actually looked like a bombing site. I imagined that it looked like wartime in another country. The National Guard was dispatched and would not let anyone into town from the main roads. Too many power lines down. No electricity. Concern about strangers coming in and robbing homes. Being the hottest months of the year, we are talking 90-100 HUMID degrees during the day. With no electricity, you couldn't even turn on a fan to circulate air. I remember sleeping in my car and turning the A/C on to cool off. A LOT of damage everywhere you looked. To this day, I wished I had taken more photos. A lot more photos. Words alone can not describe it.
Here are a few photos of my home. We were some of the lucky ones as our damage seemed minor to so many other homes.
This was after Frances. Roof damage, but not much other damage. We covered the roof with plastic until we could get a roofer to replace the damaged roof.:
This was after Hurricane Jeanne:
My backyard fence was destroyed:
We were very lucky to able to get the repairs done rather quickly. My neighbors lived in FEMA trailers for months to over a year. It was unbelievable. It really is enough to make one want to move out of Florida. Or at least far away from the Atlantic Ocean or Gulf Coast.
My son lives just north of me in a new sub-division. All the electricity is underground. Houses are built to withstand high winds. They fair much better than we do here in an older home. If we get hit this year by any category 3 or higher hurricanes, it will do damage to my home. My son, on the otherhand, should fair quite well unless it is a catergory 5 hurricane.
The other bad thing is that there are only so many main roads out of Florida. It was bumper-to-bumper on I-95. I heard there were people stuck in their cars on I-95 when both hurricanes hit. I would not want to be in a car at all during a hurricane.
If you think that living in Florida is paradise. It can be, except during a hurricane.
I am not looking forward to this hurricane season if the predictions are true.
