It's no secret. I'm not a native. Those rare breeds surround me in my everyday life though. Not only are our kiddos both born and bred Floridians, but Steven is, as well. That being said, around here in Florida, hurricanes are basically a way of life. We don't get them too often, but we typically aren't too alarmed when one appears and the idea is that we prepare for the worst but hope for the best. My family didn't move to Florida until 8 years post Andrew. I lucked out and was in South Florida when Charley hit and in Central Florida when Wilma made her way through so I tended to miss some of the larger ones our state has seen (at least in my own neck of the woods) over the years. Some are worse than others and our children got their first real taste of a true hurricane this week. Honestly, I sort of did too since I missed all those big ones mentioned before. I remember spending one hurricane at my college roommate's family's house near Tampa. We went to the Gulf assuming the track was going to keep it East... but it didn't and we were hit pretty hard. Irene maybe? At some point some of the names start to blend together for me.
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| Nothing but blue, clear skies 24 hours before the hurricane... |
As our week before the hurricane started, we did minimal prepping. As the track kept changing and pushing the storm farther and farther West towards our East coast, we got more into hurricane prepping mode. We started filling tupperware or other containers with water in case we went into a boil water scenario. We located the candles in the house in case we lost power. We discussed when we would bring in our stuff that would easily blow around outside. As we approached hurricane d-day, we realized it could be worse than we anticipated even earlier in the week and I made a random trip to Publix to see what was left. I lucked out and walked in right as they were stocking water. The poor guy couldn't even get it on the shelf because people were just standing there asking him for it. I grabbed two 2.5 gallons and was on my merry way. We knew that our possible hurricane force winds would be showing up mid-day on Friday so on Thursday we brought in everything outdoors. Not just the small stuff... everything. You know you live in Florida when your outside furniture becomes inside furniture.
Top it all off, Grandma and Grandaddy live in Palm Coast now. They are technically in Zone B for evacuations and were told that they would not be evacuated as of Wednesday afternoon. Then, the call came. The track shifted Matthew farther west and they were officially evacuated. We were watching the news on Thursday and their neighborhood, Grand Haven, was mentioned by name as an evacuation area. They did NOT want to leave. I can't blame them. They have to leave their home and just hope they come back to it in one piece but at the same time, safety is a top priority so they reluctantly packed up and headed towards us. They had booked a hotel room for Thursday night earlier in the week knowing this could happen. Unfortunately, they weren't able to book a Friday night at that point. Our initial thought was that they would have to drive back to us on Friday and sleep on our air mattress Friday night. They lucked out though and on Thursday after arriving in town, they were able to get another night at the hotel. It wasn't that we didn't want them with us, but rather that we have limited room AND they would then have to drive to us (about 15 minutes one way) during a higher point in the storm.
Thursday morning we took the kids outside to play because we knew that we would be stuck inside for quite a while. We also went to lunch in preparation for being stuck in the house all day on Friday. We had hopes initially to go to dinner, as well, but a curfew was anticipated and the county officials asked everyone to be off the roads by 6pm so most restaurants elected to close by 4pm if not earlier. After lunch, Grandma and Grandaddy headed for their hotel to ride out the storm and we "hunkered down" (I despise that phrase) to wait. We were already having rain bands come and go and during our intense watching of the weather reports on TV, knew it was coming and it was big. Midway through the day we heard that Matthew was likely to hit as a Category 4 or possibly a 5. (Again, for my non-Floridian family and friends that might be unaware, 5 is the highest it goes but it can get worse. As I've been told, Andrew was a 5 but we really don't know for sure how strong it was because it blew out some of the sensors... Eek.) We ended up with a lull mid-afternoon and met up with our neighbors outside. The kids played a while and when the rain started, we all ran for our homes to prepare to be indoors for the next 24 hours, at least.
The best part of being a Central Floridian? We have a built in "Things Just Got Real" Meter... I'm going to refer to it as the "Mickey Gauge"... Disney shut down. Gasp! When they announced they were closing early on Thursday and remaining closed through Friday, we knew we could be in for it.
Thursday we ended up being able to order pizza for dinner as Pizza Hut decided to stay open. There was a mandatory curfew put into effect beginning at 6pm through 7am on Saturday. Steven made it back from the pizza place just in time and we settled in. We initially had a bit of worry about Will. He didn't eat ALL DAY and was very out of sorts. Maybe it was the weather or we wondered if he was still sick from the week before. Either way, he cried his eyes out and asked to go to bed about 7pm. We obliged.
Kenzie went to bed at a normal time and I know we luck out that they could sleep through a tornado (or a hurricane, if you will). Steven and I sat up until about 11 watching the weather reports and our own weather changing drastically as time went on. We were particularly interested in a branch that hangs off the big tree in our side/back yard. I love that tree, but that branch has been looking iffy lately. We were wondering if nature would do us a solid and help it come down so we may not need to pay someone to come trim it. (Side note: It didn't fall, but it got super close to the ground at some point due to the amount of rain we had.)
By the end of the night as we were going to sleep, we were having what seemed to be about 20 mph sustained winds and gusts higher than that. Throughout the night we were up and down as the wind and rain would wake us up along with the power going off and on. We have a large fish tank and anytime the power would cut back on after going off, it would make a loud grinding noise. A few times we thought our power was out for sure. It would stay off for a few minutes and then return. We ended up with random flickers and brown outs throughout the night and the entire morning on Friday.
Overnight, the storm took a slight turn to the East. That meant that our wind potential was lowered significantly and we would only be looking at max sustained winds around 40mph. We were much happier to hear that.
Both kids woke up after 7am on Friday and we all cuddled in bed for a bit before we realized that we could possibly lose power so we should consider breakfast before that happened. First though... priorities. Coffee for us and milk for the kids. If we lost power, we could not have made coffee or opened the fridge just in case so those things were on the top of our list.
We were able to make some bacon, biscuits, and eggs and both kids were super happy about the fact that we had bacon. The power only browned out while I was cooking so it never even cut off the stove or oven, thankfully. We also took a few trips out front to let Jack out. Watching Steven hiding under the umbrella in the rain, was hilarious. It was definitely a moment when Jack was not happy to be a Florida dog. Poor guy.
All morning we sat around and watching the weather. Both on TV and in our own neck of the woods. The wind really picked up about 10am and continued on through about noon. Steven and I stood outside on our back porch a lot marveling at the gusts of wind coming over the hill at our backyard. There were a few times that we would see larger limbs fall off one of our trees and leaves were flying everywhere. Once, we heard a crack and a thud as a larger branch fell off of our biggest tree.
In the end like I said a minute ago, overnight early Friday morning, the hurricane shifted and moved a little East. Initially, we were expecting Brevard County to take a direct hit and bring in 80mph or so winds to our area, but the shifting track put us more in tropical storm conditions. We think we probably hit more of a 40mph max sustained wind as was expected (but it is just a guess and based on what we saw on our weather apps) and likely saw some gusts closer to 60mph. It was still pretty crazy though. In our biggest news, we never actually lost power. Honestly, that is what we were mostly worried about because we knew that if they went down, it was likely they would be out a while. We lucked out though and although some homes around our neighborhood did lose power, we kept ours. Our mandatory curfew ended up being lifted early at 2pm on Friday instead of staying until 7am on Saturday so we were happy to hear that. Hearing that, sent us outside with the kids where we ended up meeting up with the neighbors and sharing storm stories. Everyone was so happy to be outside that we stood and talked in random rain sprinkles just because we could.
Our main "damage" included a few larger limbs down, a ton of smaller sticks and leaves everywhere. So, no damage and we were so thankful for that slight shift East that Matthew took overnight. We know it could have been far worse. We have family and friends without power and some more significant damage, but everyone was safe and that was all that mattered. My parents had a cluster of 3 trees entirely uprooted in their front yard and the lake behind their house threatened to creep closer and closer to their house in Palatka. We are unsure yet what Grandma and Grandaddy's house is like as they do not head back to Palm Coast until tomorrow morning. We are hoping for the best. We know that right down the street from their house, A1A was basically ripped to shreds but hopefully their house was well enough protected. We will know tomorrow. Both sets of our parents (and my brother and sister-in-law) are without power and can likely expect to remain that way for at least a few days but everyone is safe.
So, our kids had their first real "hurricane" experience and they did pretty well. Granted, without losing power, we didn't have to deal with it like some others did but being cooped up inside all day is still never very exciting for a 4 or almost 2 year old. They had some moments that the wind and rain startled them but they have Florida salt-water running through their veins so they definitely took it all in stride. Mark that experience off the life bucket list, I guess. Hurricane party.... done.
Oh... and random note... whatever was up with Will on Thursday night was over by Friday. He was happy all day and ate EVERYTHING in the house. After dinner, he had eaten so much that I think he weighed an extra 10 pounds and looked like this...
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