Irma

[RidgeRunner]

I scrambled to get the boats out of Suwannee. Drug them back to Lakeland where the eye passed damn close if not directly over my house. Estimate of sustained winds near 80 with gusts of 100. It was rocking the vehicles in the driveway like no tomorrow. No power for 5 days. No structural damage at my house, just lots of debris. Suwannee was untouched with the exception of a couple fallen trees and yard debris. We dodged another one there but got nailed in Lakeland. It could have been worse. Long long week to say the very least. I didn't realize so many north of us(FL) had flood water and damage.. Trying to sleep without A/C is a PITA. Generator duty sucks the big one too.. But thankful to have one to preserve the meat in the freezer.

Traveling to and from Suwannee I had the opportunity to drive through Brooksville, Homasassa, Crystal River, Dade City. All had power outages but the most trees were down around Brooksville, just north of the Fermanator. Lakeland had 500 trees in the roadway to clear, then spent three full days getting traffic lights and critical needs power restored. They did a great job considering the magnitude of the power grid failures, statewide. I saw Ohio Linemen in a convoy heading south on HWY 19. Thanks to all that helped.

The lower keys are mostly uninhabitable coming from a good source, it is worse than they are letting on. Bodies floating in canals and the like.. God help the survivors, they are going to need it. V