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Blown Away: A Hurricane Irma Journal


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Day 5, 4:30 update

 

Power just went out, so I'm down to bare bones response – which is unfortunate; it was right in the middle of my actual post with pretty pictures. I'm cold and wet and it's humid beyond belief. No idea when power will be back on now, likely not for a day or two.

 

Restricted to inside activities, I'll be conserving battery life for as long as I can. Worst of the storm comes in 7 hours for us.

 

More later.

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Day 5, 9:30 update

 

We are now entering the worst of the storm. Already there's been just over 7 in (18 cm) rainfall. Winds are about 30 mph (66 kph), with gusts upwards of 50 mph (110 kph). The power keeps dancing between on and off about every half hour – we are currently in the "on" cycle of the transformer – and the worst of the storm will hit us in about three hours. I am going to attempt some sleep while I can.

 

More later.

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Day 6, 6:30 update

 

Power's been out since about 11 last night. I've been waking up about once every hour because of some warning or other, as my phone is the only point of contact with the outside world. Lots of sirens last night; I'm hoping that's just because we live within a mile of the local hospital. We've been under three flash flood alerts and at least one tornado warning so far. About an hour ago I woke up to something tree-ish thudding in a yard close by; it's too dark right now to tell if it's in ours or a neighbor's, or if it's a whole tree or just some limbs.

 

With power out like this we're likely not going to get it back for at least a day, if last year is a measurement to go by. I hope I can meter out the battery life I have remaining.

 

More later.

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James, if you are using your phone for access, you need to get a Mophie or similar portable charger. It could even recharge a tablet. We made sure the Mophie and the Insignia charger were charged before the storm hit. Not that we needed it. We haven't lost power yet. I think the strongest sustained winds we've had so far have been about 25 mph.

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Day 6, 6:00 update

 

It might be a little premature, but power just came back for us about 10 minutes ago. Unlike previous attempts, this seems to be lasting for more than 5 minutes, so it might be the real deal. Everything is recharging. Photos upcoming once other things have been taken care of.

 

More later.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Irma_2017-09-13_1805Z.jpg

 

Well, the thick of it is certainly done by now.  And yet, for almost three weeks' distance from the actual event, we are still not entirely finished.  I still hear chainsaws when I get home, as people cut some tree limbs down to size.  The curbside next to every road is piled high with drying flora and debris.  People have been lucky to escape just with flood damage.  In most cases, the piles are as high as a grown man stands tall.

 

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In my neighborhood specifically, we didn't have too terrible a time; this one tree fell down and blockaded us in for a day, but it was cleared out as soon as we safely could.  The front-most streets are on the same transformer as a nearby high school, which was being used as a shelter for the storm.  We only lost power for 2, maybe 3 days.  But the rest of the state was not so lucky.  In fact, there are some places that only as recently as yesterday had power finally restored.  During Irma's peak, we experienced 85% power failure across my county alone.  And we weren't even facing the worst of it.

 

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These are photos from around where I live.  They were taken almost a full day after Irma left.  One day, and the county-wide metropolis of Jacksonville was still flooded.  I have no words to describe this, other than awe.  And, I suppose gratitude, that we did not lose more than some tree limbs and fence panels.  We were fortunate.  Coworkers of mine lost furniture and clothes.  One lost their car.  Another had a tree come crashing through their roof, thankfully hitting no one but causing even more damage from the downpour ruining the interior and weakening the structure than the tree alone could have done.

 

And yet, even with all this, we are still more fortunate than our brothers to the south.

 

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Where I live specifically, no. In the county proper there is some need for rebuilding; there’s an entire section run through with a creek that floods a bit when it rains normally. Couple that with the strength of Irma, where there was such a storm surge from the open ocean and the rainfall that the low tide couldn’t do its low-tide job. The ocean was pushing the low tide back into the rivers and tributaries, and then Irma kept dumping more and more rain onto that. It was a compounding problem.

 

These are all from my local region specifically, where our creek was backing up:

 

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