Hurricane Frances - Page 1
Hurricane Frances headed our way - we weren't sure whether we should leave for PA or stay and protect the house and animals. We decided to stay and ended up with a house full of people that escaped their own homes. Johanne (our massage therapist/friend - she lives in a small house that was built many years ago - she was afraid that the roof would collapse so I opened the door on a blustery Saturday morning to help her bring her stuff in. She slept all Saturday while the storm approached - our winds were averaging a good 34-45 mph all day Saturday with sporadic rain showers. We lost power around 9:30 a.m. Saturday. Thank God my resourceful hubby bought a generator last year and stocked up on gas earlier in the week - we were set! Justin and Cara came out on Sunday morning with her mother in tow to spend a few days-- they were without power and had some minor flooding. They finally had their power restored on Thursday.
The eye of the storm came across close to midnight on sunday morning - we had the unfortunate luck to be on the southern edge of the eye-wall....which is where the winds are heaviest and brutal. We tried to go to bed around 10 but were quickly awake around midnight when we could feel the pressure in the air change - and the winds started howling. We endured SUSTAINED winds in the vicinity of 90-100 miles per hour from midnight until around 5:30 a.m. The house was talking pretty loud - we would watch out the window with the flashlight to see the trees bending at close to 45 degree angles..... Most of the night the storm was blowing from north to south...but when the eye wall came over at midnight - you could see the wind direction change from south to north. Large items were hitting the windows and the roof. My cats were all pacing in the living room howling. We were in candlelight now having turned the generator off for a few hours of peace and quiet.
Finally the stress of the days preparation for the storm and the lack of sleep for a few days took it's toll- jay and i returned to bed for about 2 hours and woke up early sunday morning hoping that the roof was intact. We went outside and surveyed the damage - we were still experiencing wind/rain squalls from the slow moving storm. The storm wouldn't have been so bad if it had moved faster than 5 mph. We were some of the lucky ones only lost power for 2 days. There are homes that are still without power today - one week after the storm. Stores have no food -the dairy, produce, frozen foods, bakery and canned goods aisles are empty. We only sustained landscape damage - some neighbors had holes poked through their roof from fallen trees. Check out our pictures of the storm below:
Looking at what used to be a large arbor and the hot tub. The wind twisted the frame of the arbor right out of the ground |
looking into the backyard from the back patio
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neighbors front yard. |
a gust of wind came through the bottom of the garage door - ripped the shelving off the wall and blew out the attic access door - just missing my car! |
johanne's truck was buried under two large ornamental trees that were uprooted.
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the neighbors yard - minimal flooding |
johanne's truck had to be cut out. |
fern tree - ornamental tree by end of drive was blown over - the tree has been righted but the leaves have been blown so hard that they now point sideways
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large pine tree that came down in the middle of the night- root end |
the tree was so large - it extended across our entire front yard on a diagonal.
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monique's backyard - she had this tree come down and the branches got stuck on another tree - holding it up at this angle |
norfolk pine tree - usually full of beautiful greens - it's been stripped from the wind.
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neighbors yard - flooded |
justin, johanne and jay - meeting of the minds trying to figure out how the damn chainsaw works to cut johanne's truck out! |
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looking into the back left corner of the yard. the wind ripped the gate off of it's hinges early on. |
behind the addition
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