Our Ian Experience

With the new track, as our winds began to pick up, they were from the east and north, so instead of the giant expected storm surge (which Port Charlotte and points south got instead), the winds emptied Tampa Bay Wednesday morning. They picked up as the day went on, and we hunkered down. We lost power at 2 PM Wednesday and got it back at about 7 PM Friday. As usual, many areas around us got it back sooner. Despite our neighborhood butting right up to the power substation, we were some of the last in this area to get power back on. Tampa Electric Company (TECO) has a text messaging system. When we lost power, I reported it, of course, and at 4:30 Wednesday, during the height of the storm, they were kind enough to send a message that power had been restored in our area (NOT).

I have mentioned to some people that this one had me really scared. The wind was wildly whipping around. When I mentioned this to my boss, he said, “I doubt the storm was any worse than others you’ve been through. You’re just older and know you can die now.” As I thought about that, I realized he was partially correct. The other thing was that, had the storm come in as predicted early on, Tampa would have looked a lot like Ft. Myers. I just don’t know how I would handle having to start over again completely. I admit to some survivor’s guilt as we watch the images on the news from that area.

At the end, rather than the projected 7-12 inches of rain, we’d received only about 2.5 inches. I’d pumped the pool level down and had to add water back.

Thursday morning came, and we went outside to check around. No large limbs down, just a ton of small limbs, sticks, and leaves from the live oaks. The mango tree in the front had shed almost nothing. (Expect me to write more about my feelings on live oaks.) Typically, the weather is sunny, sweltering, and extremely humid after a hurricane passes. Thursday morning was actually cool enough when we got the gusts of wind; I thought about coming back inside and putting on a sweatshirt. That made it easy to spend the day cleaning up, and we got most of it done and packaged up into about fifteen large yard waste bags. While it wasn’t exactly fun, I’ll take that over what the folks down south of us are having to clean up.

The damage in our area wasn’t bad, but a few folks got hit. One block over and down, a live oak branch fell across a neighbor’s car (have I mentioned how much I hate live oaks). And near one of my Church’s parking lots, a very large tree fell. The city is, as of Monday, Oct. 10 still not made it here to clean up the debris piles. I’m not complaining, it’s just that much stuff.

Lay’s company had decided to reopen Friday, and I went to a nearby friend’s house (who never seems to lose power) and got caught up on some work.

We are thankful it wasn’t bad here, but as I mentioned, we hurt deeply for the folks down south of us. They will be trying to reclaim their lives for a very long time.

Lessons Learned:

1. We are reasonably well prepared, but we need to take care of bigger things like window protection and the generator.
2. Recently during a replacement of the hot water heater, I considered a tankless one. Nope, we were both able to take warm “Navy-style” showers twice each day.
3. The trick of freezing water bottles and moving them to the fridge, and loading ice in a deep drawer works.