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Good Luck! Notes!


pogo97

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Thanks for the well wishes, and I extend them to my neighbors.

 

No plywood - storm awnings and shutters. Everything is up except for dropping a few of the awnings (about one minute work each). I keep them up for air until it starts getting windy

 

I wouldn't live in a house without storm protection. The first thing I did when I bought this house is put up the shutters and fix anything that needed attention. It's cheap insurance. I always wonder why people use plywood and wait until the last minute to prepare. Buying storm shutters out of season is cheap and you can use them storm after storm after storm. Drop the awnings, twist the wingnuts, put up the panels, twist more wingnuts and it's done. Takes about an hour at a leisurely pace.

 

I collect cheap jug wine bottles from condominium gigs and they are washed out and filled with water. Non perishable food is stored, generator works, I got gas early (if the storm passes, it'll go in the car), wine bottles are on the counter, yard debris cleared, gutters cleaned, and so on.

 

When I bought this house, I chose one built in 1950 before the developers bribed the government to water down the building codes. It's seen a few. I also chose it on high ground - 32' above sea level, which is a mountain around here. I know better than to buy on 'reclaimed' swamp land. No Houston or NOLA type flood for me. I've been in Florida since 1957 and followed my parent's example.

 

I've survived hurricanes since 1960, and although there is no guarantee, I'm probably much safer here than on I-95 in my car. And if a minor breach happens, I'm here to protect my music gear.

 

Unfortunately my weekend gigs were cancelled - big bummer - and after the storm hits there will be a giant clean-up. In the last two hurricanes that I had around here, we were without power for 10 days each. That's almost as bad as losing gigs.

 

No, I'm not taking it lightly, just calmly. I'm probably over-prepared, but by doing it early, I don't have to fight lines and pay exorbitant prices. It's just life here in Florida.

 

The people who fare the worst are those on the water, and on reclaimed swamp land. I don't understand why people would build their homes there. But I don't understand a lot of things.

 

It looks like we are going to miss the most severe part of the storm. A few days ago it looked like Ft. Pierce was going to have a direct hit - Cat 4. Now I don't think I'll see more than 120mph sustained winds and I used to drive my Fiat Spyder faster than that :D -- we've seen that before and I guess it's time to prune the trees.

 

Good luck to all my friends in the path.

 

Notes

 

 

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My father-in-law is in St. Kitts, which was toward the edge of the storm. We called ahead of the hurricane and he was in good shape -- he grew up there, he knows what to do. We haven't reached him since, though. The phones could be out for weeks. Life goes on.

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Am

Here I sit all boarded up

G

With Irma at my door

F

It's Saturday I should be gigging

E7

Man, that makes me sore

 

With wind and rain I still have power

So I'm on the forum at this hour

I'm waiting for this thing to end

And then the cleanup will begin.

 

Lame "poetry" by Notes

 

to the tune of "Runaway."

 

(the G should be over "Irma" and the F over "Sat" but, you know, html)

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......and I used to drive my Fiat Spyder faster than that :D -- we've seen that before and I guess it's time to prune the trees.

 

Good luck to all my friends in the path.

 

Notes

 

 

hahaha, small point but the Fiat Spider was with an i not a y (as in the Porsche Spyder form the 50's)

 

 

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Ah yes, Spyder, and it went 140mph, but I never took it over 135 as the tach yellow lined there.

 

I got a ticket on I-95 and I told the judge it was in a safe zone, nobody on the road and I went up and took it right back down.

 

The police said the airplane that clocked me said it looked like I put the afterburners on and then slowed it down.

 

Total fine $35 for court costs. I guess the judge wished he had a little red spyder.

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Very windy, rainy, some tree limbs down, house is secure, power going on and off, but nothing this house hasn't weathered before. Fortunately, I'm on the east coast of FL and the storm is drifting to the west coast. We'll probably see nothing higher than Cat 1 wind speed here. The people in Tampa won't be so lucky, and I really feel for Key West as Irma has been sitting there way too long.

 

Little tornadoes have been spawned, but I'm not in a tornado prone area. They seem to like big flat spots like airports and mobile home parks.

 

So I'm working putting the finishing touches on 6 new "Fake Disks" that I'll be releasing for Band-in-a-Box later this month.

 

I'll keep you posted as long as I have power.

 

And I wish all in Irma's path will get through this storm safely.

 

Notes

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Checking in.

 

No property damage - no injuries, and we are well,. Lots of medium sized tree limbs down, we lost power and still don't have it - I'm running on a generator, and the phone/DSL goes in and out. It's on now (obviously).

 

Our strongest winds were only 100mph and this house has seen much worse. We cleaned up the yard, raised the storm awnings and took all the storm panels down but one window. We'll wait until we get power becuase it filters out hot sun.

 

We lost gigs, and that's the worst part. Now patiently waiting for the power to come back on.

 

Notes

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*sigh*

 

I'd forgotten about generators. My town was caught in a major ice storm (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/January_1998_North_American_ice_storm) and many people now have generators. Last time the power went out, there was about fifteen minutes of silence, then the generators came on and then people with gas mowers started mowing their lawns.

 

We are not a quiet species.

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The Electric Power came back, it flickered a little today, the phone/DSL has been working for a couple of days now, and the clean-up is almost complete.

 

Things are slowly returning to normal. As far as I know now, our gigs starting next week are back on, although one has been postponed until October. It was a Thursday afternoon gig so we had the new date open.

 

All in all we got lucky on this coast. There for a while NOAA had it aiming straight through us, but Irma decided to go up the west coast instead. Good for us, bad for them.

 

I'm glad the biggest complaint I have is the loss of gigs, it could have been much worse.

 

One more weekend without gigs (sigh) and I think I'll go shopping for a bigger generator in a few weeks ;)

 

Thanks again for the well wishes.

 

Notes

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Power still out, damage minimal. Got all the busted up trees chain sawed and stored in the garage until hauled off. Generator working giving me the refrigerator, portable AC unit, small kitchen appliances and necessary lighting. Pretty much a non-event with cat 1 conditions throughout the blow. Neighbors are up in arms about the power outage. Evidently my neighborhood covers three grids and over the 20 years it's been in existence one of the grids always loses power first and gets it restored last. Over time and many such instances this isn't just happenstance so the HOA is launching a legal investigation into it. Scuttlebutt indicates that several neighborhoods have experienced the same and are joining the fray.

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Glad you're OK.

 

We're always the last to get power restored. FPL, the power company goes for how many they can connect in a hurry first. That means dense neighborhoods.

 

I live in a sparsely populated section of town. One 15 mile road with a lagoon on one side, protected wetlands on the other, and less then a half dozen short spurs (I'm on one of those). Although my lot is only a half acre, most are 50 or more acres.

 

That means for the amount of hours FPL has to put in, fewer people are back on. So they go for the numbers. And as much as I don't like it, that's what they should do.

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Back to normal then? Cool deal. .

 

We're also on the grid again and back to normal. A couple neighbors still need some trees cleared and damage assessed/repaired but all in all it's minor. Eight days without power and as I understand Duke Energy's position there's still outlying areas waiting for it to be restored. My lot has been acceptable, really, compared to others. I look at the Caribbean and Mexico and feel that Lady Luck did some serious talking to Mother Nature on my behalf.

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