Yes, it has been a busy season for tropical storms and hurricanes here in Florida. What is the difference you ask? Well in a phrase - wind speed; a TS has winds between 40 mph and 73 mph and a hurricane has winds in excess of 73 mph graded 1-5 on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale used to rate hurricane intensity.
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| Sandy pool |
A storm system can be a hurricane in one place and further from the eye a TS.
TS Colin visited us in early June and just rattled our hurricane shutters (see post & pictures of 6 June 2016).
Hurricane Hermine passed by us staying out in the Gulf. She made landfall north of here in early September and created the biggest impact on our beach. Hermine threw sand up into our pool area and parking garage under our building as well as cutting away at the sand dunes. We were out of town and missed all the action.
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| Hermine undercut the dunes |
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| Parking under building full of sand |
Hurricane Matthew, a category 4 hurricane (winds 130+ mph), came up the east coast of Florida. Arriving overnight October 6/7, he only brought us heavy seas and strong winds moving the sand about on the beach, but not cutting into any dunes . Driving back from North Carolina at the time, we had to out run Matthew.
After attending a family wedding, we left North Carolina Tuesday morning planning to take our time and do a bit of sightseeing on our way back to Florida. Straight through it is an 8-10 hour drive.
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Wall Quilt for niece's wedding
he is musical (top left) and she has dogs (bottom right) |
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| Preparing to load logging truck |
Watching the TV morning news on Wednesday we saw the mandatory evacuations (and queues at petrol stations!) of the east coast and thought evacuatees were coming our way looking for hotel rooms. After a few phone calls we discovered there were only a few rooms available for Wednesday night and NONE for Thursday or Friday within a 500 mile radius. So we hightailed it to the only room we found anywhere near our route in Valdosta for Wednesday evening. Drove the rest of the way Thursday outrunning Matthew before 'he' made it to central Florida.
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| Georgia cotton field |
We did pass many lumber trucks taking their pine logs to two different sawmills/lumber yards en route, 2 deer meat processing plants (venison), lots of cotton and peanuts growing and followed a few peanut and corn trucks loaded high.
There were pecan and peach orchards lining the roads and utility trucks heading south. We traveled most of the way cross country thus avoiding evacuees and supply trucks.
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| should be vertical! |
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| Sunset post Matthew |
We topped up the petrol tank, bought some groceries, filled the bathtub with water and pulled down the hurricane shutters. Matthew passed us by as we slept in Friday morning. Reminds me of another hurricane I slept through years ago in Houston Only damage we found upon returning home was the strut of our hurricane shutters pushed out - from Hermine we think. We are very fortunate!!
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