The End!?! Irma Damage

at 129th Street in MB

 Hurricane Irma did minor damage in our town, this being the worst of what we have seen a few blocks south of us - although having your roof blown off might not seem 'minor' to the owner. We've heard the worst hit in this area were north-facing porches and screened-in lanais.

Pass-A-Grille

Here a tree toppled and took out some electric lines and tipped a utility pole.

We found a water leak in our condo which we have to investigate. It's not much and I didn't look up when returning home so only found it now. We think maybe Irma blew water in through a gap with the exterior transom above the door - hummmm . . .

All I need now is a good rainstorm to blow the remaining sand out of the screens on my balcony.


And we found a few of the railing bars were blown off the condo walkways. As you can see from the empty parking lot out front, it is September, the quietest month, and not too many people are here.


Further afield, a few manatees had a spot of bother . . . with the storm surge that sucked water out of all the bays.

The Week; 22 September 2017

someone's roofing felt

We spent yesterday evening (when it's cooler!) picking up roofing felt from the beach out front.The sand is very dry and the beach feels 'fluffy.' The city beach rackers and public works team are very busy with lots of rubbish removal, so this seemed the least we could do. So who's roof do you think was on the beach????

The USF Coastal Research Lab is now surveying our beaches to see what impact Irma made; there is some suspicion of erosion on the upper beach just in front of the dunes and along the foreshore where waves break; we did see a man swimming out and then holding up a long stripped pole at various depths offshore on the 18th - maybe surveying water depths? To us it appears the offshore sandbar has shifted slightly out to sea, but sand has returned to cover the additional exposed groyne pillars (see posts of 13 & 14 September).

Slightly smaller Hurricane Category 5 Maria started on a very similar storm path to Irma, but the jet stream and some High Pressure systems are in a different place, so Maria devastated Puerto Rico, but has missed Florida. The forecasts have been much more accurate this time, but that really doesn't help if you are facing total destruction; for the Caribbean islands it is now 'The End.' We are now in height of hurricane season which lasts until 30th November.  Jose, now a post-tropical cyclone, is still active off the east coast of the USA, and producing wind and flooding. Not sure anyone has told the weather there is a 'season,' but hopefully all of us have now had the worst of it

wattsupwiththat.com

The dolphins have been very visible in calm Gulf of Mexico waters, with lots of leaping and tail slapping (this could be play, fights, mating or food hunting).  A bit of fish tossing too, along with one guy hunting in very close to shore. If only I had CB's camera and talent! He was so close I could see him underwater.

groyne to left and dolphin fin center right
still some piles of seaweed on the beach awaiting a high tide to be swept away

Cleaning Up After Irma

It's hot and humid. Heat exhaustion is a concern for those without power - still millions lacking electricity in Florida. Tons of ice is being shipped into the state.  It is really tough for many Florida residents - they have big or even massive clean-ups and repairs/rebuilds to make. Even disposing of debris is a chore - see the 5 categories into which locals have to sort their stuff for trash pick-up. The Muck category = wet carpet, ruined drywall, etc. There are some new evacuation orders for flooding rivers in Florida, but none affecting us.

The Florida citrus industry, 70% smaller than 20 years ago, is very badly hit along with sugar cane and veggies. Milk is being dumped as they cannot take it to processing plants that don't have power. Thankfully the cattle are largely contained and not wandering the roads. I even found a website detailing instructions to evacuate cattle in a hurricane - who knew?!?

Media starting to report on how to get financial aid for those with major damage. Click here if you want to read more about Tampa Bay hurricane damage. Grocery stores and city hall still not open on MB. We haven't yet seen the residential building that was reported to have lost its roof.

Living on MB we are very lucky - our clean-up only involves a small bit of sand removal from paths and under building parking plus off railings & cars where it was blasted.  

Of course our pool area needs sorting too - getting the sand off the bottom plus those loungers out of the pool where they hid during Irma, as well as putting back chairs and planted pots sheltering in our lobby. Done Thursday afternoon, so hopefully the pool will be back in business Friday.

We cleaned our balcony today - washed the floors, and oiled the metal furniture to protect it a bit from salt spray.

What do you think this is washed up on the dunes?

Gulf water temperatures have dropped about 6 degrees post Irma to 82 F.  And even the City doesn't have a huge beach clean-up job - just in the main a bit more seaweed to clear (it does start to stink!) which they started to do today. Everyone is working hard to get things back to 'normal,' and the traffic light at 150th and Gulf is back on!

Sea turtle season is drawing to a close, and we will have to see how the few remaining nests fared.

count those additional exposed  groyne pillars

Post Storm & Return Home - What will we find?

Having waited for more traffic lights to become operational and checked our local Publix was open (or so said the Publix website), we made our way home from Lakeland to the Gulf Beaches today (Wednesday) midday.  What would we find??

Well the journey went remarkably well.  There were a few Road Rangers out helping motorists with broken down vehicles.  The Interstate was very clear - only a few leaves on the side and one piece of plywood in the road for our whole 50 mile (just over 1 hour) journey. And the plywood didn't even cause a problem.

Many Interstate lights had been lowered on their poles and were still down. About 50-75% of the high billboards were torn beyond legibility.




It was good to see utility trucks out working. This one near Dinosaur Land, a distinctive sight on the I-4 approaching Tampa.

We drove through Tampa and then onto the Gandy Bridge making good time. See all the traffic (not) ???

Gandy Bridge

One driver was really concerned about finding petrol- see the car on the left with the red plastic containers on his roof?

no traffic light junction

Just a single intersection had no traffic lights on the way to our barrier island, but it was well staffed by police. Glad they got some cover from the sun too! A few bent lightpoles along the way as well.

At last our drawbridge and home - to the right in the bay a small boat has sunk at the Yacht Club.

look right now for sunken boat

Driving south on Gulf Blvd. at 150th Ave

But on the island at 150th and Gulf traffic lights are out of action; thankfully the police have it well under control.


Publix and Winn Dixie supermarkets still have no power supply and hence are closed. Should have bought those groceries en-route - aw well.





And at last we are home! All looks well and the electricity is on; out front the pole repair of a few weeks ago survived the winds, maybe better it went out before Irma hit and was repaired last month?

Irving is busy cleaning up and seems only a little sand blew in the under building parking area.

Cars are all OK!

We removed our things from
our balcony putting down the hurricane shutters. A little sand got in under the shutters so time for a clean-up (picture right is for my snowbird neighbours).



So how's it looking out at the beach? Lots of sand blown about . . .

even the leaves coated in sand

Seems we have uncovered a bit of the beach groynes and lowered the dunes a little, but otherwise just fine!

The few sea turtle nests that remain at the end of this season have been re-staked and there are some interesting shells on the beach (even more on Shell Key - to see visit Sea Turtle Trackers on Facebook here).

Even the crabs are back enjoying the beach along with a few intrepid tourists bathing in the sea. Yesterday and today were almost Florida autumnal - below 85F (29.5 C) and not too humid. Sadly for those without electricity, Thursday onward is forecast to go back to typical hot, sticky summer weather in the 90s (32+ C).

We in Tampa Bay were so so fortunate! Hubby and I are updating our hurricane plan based on this 'trial run.'

crab hole - so much sand!

tide lines in the sand

was 7 now 9 exposed groyne pillars 

Evacuation Stations

Irma hits Lakeland

Tuesday, 12th September
Thank you dear friends and family for the calls and messages checking on our status during hurricane Irma. As far as we can discern from media, social media and friends' texts our area has survived pretty well. That said no one has reported on our condo building or beach yet.

Floridians have been tracking Irma since 31 August; it hit here 10/11 September. Over 6 million people evacuated and now over 1/2 FL without power. The east coast, although less directly hit, seems to have some of the worst flooding along with Marco Island on the west coast where Irma came ashore.

We have now been at a hotel for 5 nights and cooped up for four days - going stir crazy and very tired, but not complaining. I decide to write this blog waiting to go back home.

So here's how it unfolded. Remember the forecasts this time last week were for Irma to hit Miami on the East Coast of Florida - how wrong they were!

Thursday afternoon (7th September) word reached us that our county, Pinellas, was about to order mandatory evacuation of zone A, which is all of city of Madeira Beach, earlier than we anticipated. All a bit of a surprise as initially the hurricane was on the eastern side of the state and expected to turn northward before it got to the west coast.

Hubby and I then were scrambling to get an extra night in a hotel and get out fast to travel safely and avoid the chaos that may ensue with large number of evacuees Friday and Saturday. I thought we were pretty well prepared and monitoring the situation well for an overly cautious plan to leave Friday - ha ha. Gasoline and water running short as of last Tuesday. My learning is to prep and go even earlier than it appears necessary.

We had a smooth run to Lakeland (one hour east of the beach) our selected place to go out of the way of both the Gulf of Mexico and Bay storm surges, but not too far. All week the predictions were moving Irma's path to the East Coast of Florida so Lakeland seemed very sensible (confirmed by a life long local resident too). We have a good room at a reasonable price on the 2nd floor (not too high for winds, but above ground level possible flooding). We also were able to refill our gas tank and have some non-perishable food supplies with us. In our hotel room we have a microwave, small fridge, but no backup generator if we lose electricity and internet.  Irma brushes Cuba Friday as a category 5 storm.

source NY Times - Irma's actual path

wrapped petrol pumps & boarded up shop in background

Friday night (8th) businesses starting shutting up with nothing much predicted to be open for Saturday.  So we decided to hunker down and out came the hurricane box of food rations along with Friday's restaurant dogie bags. Although we brought things to do, it was pretty unsettling waiting for a major weather event to overtake one.

We kept wondering if we should make a dash further north as the storm path prediction moved Irma closer and closer to us and the west coast of Florida, but with full hotels/shelters, roads clogged and notoriously bad Florida drivers, that seemed another risk into the unknown. Since no one knew Irma's path . . . we stayed put and prayed for the best. Saturday Irma is downgraded to category 4 storm. At some point all roads/bridges into Pinellas county are closed.

bed as far from window as we can get it

Winds picked up Sunday afternoon (10th) in Lakeland, but nothing too bad.  We moved our bed away from the window, lost cable/TV Sunday evening and crawled into bed just as we lost power here in our hotel at 11:25 Sunday night (Apparently our condo lost power just around the same time).

Through the night winds strengthened and the windows rattled, so I was a bit on edge for sleeping, but really it just sound like a bad storm to me.  Irma now a category 2 (approaching a category 1) at 90 -110 mph with the eye passing right over us about 2 am. The windows in our hotel room leaked a little but we survived just fine, although apparently it got a bit wet on the first floor of our hotel.

Our car is unharmed, starts and is full of gas. Fortunately it is cloudy and not too hot here Monday as we are without air conditioning or any ventilation in our room. Someone falls in our hotel lobby on a slippery floor (humidity) and breaks a leg.

No electricity means no TV, no internet which is an experience in itself! Unfortunately local radio stations stopped broadcasting local hurricane updates so we were in an information void all day Monday. Friends and sister kindly texted some information and we managed to call the Pinellas county emergency center and Duke Energy. We heard  Pinellas 'borders' reopen at 9:30 am, but we still received mixed information from the media on bridge openings and hence our ability to get back into Pinellas county and home. Late Monday residents only allowed back on our barrier island - storm surge of maybe 3 feet. Estimates for electricity restoration could be weeks they say. Curfews imposed in a number of places. No restaurants or groceries open, no gas/petrol. Still people are driving home.

So surprise when our hotel electric came on at 6:30 Monday night!!!! Yippee, amazing how happy electric power can make one - hot coffee, cold drinks, warm shower, air conditioning and information from the outside world!  Wow!!  We also have water and no sewer issues we are aware of at the hotel. We are most fortunate and better off than most of Florida!

We then hear that the Pinellas barrier islands are reopening, but there is wide scale power outage, downed electric lines, sewer issues (so please no flushing and keep water usage to a minimum), no gas and dangerous driving as many intersections have no traffic lights. Locals seem to be zooming through at 50+ mph. Yikees!

Tuesday morning (12th) our Lakeland hotel is temporarily closed to new guests as the exhausted staff try to regroup. Neighbors text our condo now has electricity. Media report maybe a roof blown off a nearby MB apartment complex.  Rivers are flooding and not yet peaked across Florida. Caribbean destruction total. We are so blessed! Plan to return home Wednesday, hoping road conditions continue to improve.

Sailing the Great Lakes

The five Great Lakes sit astride the US/Canadian border and are the largest freshwater lakes in the world and contain 1/5th of world's fresh surface water. Spread evenly out across the USA, the water in the Great Lakes would cover the 50 States to a depth of 9.5 feet.

For a special anniversary, we decided to explore by a small cruise ship and then venture into the cheese heartland of America, Wisconsin. On this trip we were fortunate to see friends and family as well as take in sights of North America and make multiple border crossings!

Here's our ship, the Victory I, docked perpendicular to a large retired lake freighter (now a museum). Yes, we had a real mixture of weather as you can see in the photo.

The highlights of our trip were not the ports visited, but transiting the canals - done either at night or as it would happen in the rain or both!

mail delivery by ferry & put-put cart

We saw old friends, traveled to the Toronto Islands in Lake Ontario, and watched the planes buzz our ferry on their descent. Toronto has some fun architecture too.

Yes, there is a real dog playing in dog fountain

First night on the cruise we traversed the Welland Canal's 8 locks; locks 4-6 are stair-cased. Oddly, we were the only ones watching our journey through the locks from 2-4 am

the 'Flats' - gentrified banks of the Cuyahoga River

The locks took us into Lake Erie and on to Cleveland, much improved from the days when I lived there. We discovered some hidden gems I didn't know existed as well as dining with an old colleague in 'The Flats.'

clever linking of new and old
 buildings at Art Museum

Next we docked in Windsor, Ontario although going to The Henry Ford Museum, as in Detroit the ship previously was met with border control/police in full riot gear - not passenger friendly. Our highlight was the Ford Factory Tour seeing the making of the F-150 pick-up truck - although no pictures allowed. 

Model A

Henry Ford collected everything (remember this when we come to Alex Jordan in Wisconsin - an explosion on the Victorian curio cabinet) - his museum is overwhelming, not to mention the 1800s recreated village complete with steam train and craft buildings.

Fuller Dome house - a failed idea for a Model T of homes

Now in Lake Huron, we visited the Ojibwe Cultural Foundation for Native People's in Little Current before transversing the Soo Locks into Lake Superior and back out again.  The Hoop Dancer was amazing.

Rain greeted us at the tourist destination of Mackinac Island, Michigan - a place without cars, but 500 horses.

Infamous Grand Hotel
& lovely gardens

In Chicago, we were met by my sister; never mind the port was an industrial one with high security. After a day of relaxation, we changed transport mode onto an Amtrack train to St Louis and the 'zone of totality' for the eclipse.

What can I say - amazing to see all the people come out for it, the sky never turned black but a blue dusk colour with a 360 sunset glow at the horizon and the crickets + birds chirped like mad, got quiet and then chirped again.  Although some declared it to be 'life changing,' I didn't find the eclipse that dramatic an experience.

On way back to the train we visited the Route 66 Highway museum - yup they have one!

Creativity for ugly hotel roof 

Converting to car, we took a road trip through Wisconsin, visiting more friends in Lake Geneva and eating sweet corn on the cob along with'cheese curds' which squeak when eaten. 

My goal was to see Frank Lloyd Wright's Talisen, House on the Rock and the Wisconsin Dells - places I had heard about when young - before having a spot of German food at Mader's in Milwaukee.

Wright's Taliesin

Jordan's Garden sculpture repeated many times

 Frank Lloyd Wright liked the idea of entering into a small space that then surprisingly opened into a expansive space - think low ceiling entry into cathedral ceiling grand hall.

Although not contemporaries, he and Alex Jordan of House on the Rock shared this and the desire to build spaces to showcase the Wisconsin countryside.  Neither was really a home - Wright more of a compound and Jordan more of an exhibition space. Both are simultaneously intriguing and weird!






Jordan, having selected his building sight on a favourite scenic rock overlook, in later life obscured the glass windows with blue Plexiglas to showcase his collection of Tiffany lamps - odd to say the least.

Wright collected and incorporate Japanese art into Taliesin, Jordan did likewise at House on the Rock, but then went much further to collect . . . well just about anything from ship miniatures, dollhouses, circus models, guns, aviation artifacts and built a Victorian street scene. Frankly it is exhausting to tour through all the 'stuff.'

Infinity Room at House on the Rock

Infinity Room from the inside

all instruments automated to play via a coin box

Alex Jordan also had a massive number of musical instruments which we automated to a variety of carousels, but not with animal figures, but made up creatures. One cannot describe it!!

We had also stopped by a small cheese making facility, the International Crane Sanctuary and visited the natural beauty of the Wisconsin Dells - also know as an amusement park area. And it was home to Hurricane Irma!

 

Milwaukee Art Museum

Grey Crowned Crane