Pending Hurricane Ian

[Maxie]

I?ll pray that you and your flock are all safe.🙏❤️

Hurricanes are not something to take lightly, even if you are inland. Wind storms are so unpredictable. I remember being on vacation in Florida, Clearwater Beach, when hurricane Andrew hit. We weren?t in the eye of the hurricane but from what I remember it was very windy and we had a lot of rain. The water on the beach covered almost the whole beach.

[linda040899]

The track of Ian has changed and landfall has moved significantly south, Sarasota County specifically. This reminds me of Hurricane Charley more and more. It appears that Ian will go inland and then turn North with the eye going over Lakeland. It's a slow moving storm which means more sustained wind and a LOT more rain. My area could get as much as 20+ inches of rain. FL soil is sand so it's porous but enough rain fast enough will cause flooding. They are saying that Ian could have winds as high as a Cat 5 storm which is a scary thing to me! Right now, we are fine and Ken is going to put up the last 2 hurricane panels this morning. I'm going to do some cooking so that we have food that can be eaten cold, if necessary, should we lose power and can't use our generator until the storm has passed. I will continue to update this thread as long as I can.

[Z28Taxman]

Stay safe down there. Might want to build an Ark. You've certainly got enough critters to fill it.

[Maxie]

Stay safe!!🙏❤️

[Maxie]

Linda,
How are you? All ok after the storm?

[Z28Taxman]

Linda made it through the storm ok. She has no power or internet but she has a generator so everyone is ok.

[linda040899]

We just got power and our Internet connection back about 30 minutes ago. Whew! It's been a LONG 4 days! I've always said since I've lived in this area that Tampa Bay is leading a charmed life. Apparently, it's not so easy for storms to come into Tampa Bay and Ian was not exception. He made a couple of last minute track adjustments as he was passing the Keys and made landfall in the Ft. Myers area, almost in the same place that Hurricane Charlie did in 2004. The major difference between Charlie and Ian is that Charlie was a small, compact storm with an eye that was only about 3 miles wide. Charlie's whole storm diameter was roughly 33.5 mile wide. Unlike Charlie, Ian was 400 miles wide with an eye that was 33.5 miles across. All of Charlie would have fit in the eye of Ian! Our area has damage, mostly from wind rather than rain. Personally, the only damage our property sustained was the loss of roughly 70' of 8' wooden privacy fence. Our roofs are fine. Ken tied down our chicken shed and the chickens are all safe. We have a whole house generator, so other than being on generator power and no computer access because our provider was down, we are fine. One thing I did learn is that living off grid is not as hard as you might think and we found out what does and does not work.

[Maxie]

Glad to hear all is well.❤️

[linda040899]

FL established a hurricane recovery fund several years ago and we contribute to that with our property taxes each year. The result, since we haven't had any major tropical events, is that we have a resource with a surplus of millions that will be used to finance some of our recovery. Thank you Gov. DeSantis!

[Z28Taxman]

What's left of Ian is still hanging around here. Been raining since friday. Not complaining, a little rain is nothing compared to what hit florida and we needed it anyway.