We knew when we made the decision to retire in Florida that hurricanes were part of the deal. We had been frequenting Florida after all for thirty four years and had spent a lot of time there, as well as living in Tennessee for nine and a half years so we were not unfamiliar with storms. However, even though we felt familiar we had never been in a direct path of a hurricane so when the great Governor of Florida began preparing the state long before Ian had even crossed the gulf and into Cuba, we paid attention, followed all the instructions and began to prepare.
We have always felt like we are well prepared for emergencies, but this one was different as we had never prepared for massive flooding before. I mean how does one prepare for that?
Anyways, we set on a path to do our due diligence and to make sure we were ready well ahead of Ian’s arrival to the east coast, so we went grocery shopping and bought easy to prepare things in case we lost power, we stocked up on water, filled gas cans in preparation in case we had to use our generator, checked and changed batteries in our flashlights, lanterns, battery candles, etc… restocked our battery supply, filled our bath tub with water, filled our laundry sink with water, took everything off the patio and porch and brought it all into the garage, also removing all the lawn ornaments like bird bath, feeders etc.. we made sure there was no flying debris. We did all the laundry and ran the dishwasher just in case we lost power for days.
We had all of this complete by Tuesday evening, on Wednesday morning Gene got up and went to get sand bags but found the line to be about eight blocks long about a three hour wait so he decided not to wait and came up with a plan B. If our patio looked like it would flood, if the pond looked like it would go over the bank he was going to use a tarp and paver bricks and electric tape to seal up the back sliding doors. I don’t know if this would have worked but thank God we did not have to try that as the pond had a four foot high bank and still had about eight to ten inches more to rise before it reached the grass.
We felt ready, the rain started getting heavy and the winds increased through the night our weather radio blared several times for three tornado warnings and flash flood warnings and high wind advisory’s. When we went to bed winds were approximately 40-60 mph but on Thursday winds were clocked as high as 99 in Daytona beach.
We had been in our home all day Wednesday, all day Thursday without a cease in the wind and sheets of rain, anticipating up to fourteen inches. By Thursday morning we were at 9.9 inches of rain. I have never in my life seen rain like that before.
And finally Friday came and the winds had died down, still gusty, but small gusts of 20-30 mph and the rain was no longer in sheets but normal rain. We finally ventured out into our yard to assess the damage Friday afternoon and found we were fortunate, we had one tree break and two fell over. We had some flowers take a beating but they will survive. No water leaks in the new house, no flooding. We are grateful. Gene worked in the yard most of the afternoon as the sun came out and replanted the fallen young trees and tried to repair the one that broke. We will know in a couple of months if it will survive.
As we watched the news to see the damage in our area we again thanked the Lord for our blessing of not sustaining damage. Our hearts go out to all of those who lost lives, homes, cars and every material thing they owned on this earth. We’ve always said to each other how heartbreaking that would be but at least you lived. That’s the most important thing of all.
The photos I’m posting are from various news articles and I do not own the rights to. They have been shared across Facebook and other social media. These are photos strictly from the Daytona Beach and Daytona Beach Shores areas. The west coast sustained much more damage than the east coast, and it is hard to look at the images. It will take months if not years to rebuild. There are areas in Daytona Beach that lost their sea walls. Completely collapsed, succumbed to the power of the ocean.
I leave you with this, no matter where we live, it doesn’t matter the place, we are all vulnerable to natural disasters. Be prepared. Do not wait to have emergency supplies stored up for you and your loved ones.
Proverbs 21:20
The wise store up choice food and olive oil, but fools gulp theirs down.
Forever grateful ❤️
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