It is hard to believe the picture above was taken nine months ago; I mean “one grandchild, two months of summer in Colorado, and three children leaving home” ago. And now one hurricane ago. We wanted to send you a quick note to let you know we are well after Hurricane Irma.
One thing that makes hurricanes better than earthquakes (learned while in Southern California) is you can get up to a week’s notice to prepare. “Kinda.” Irma started heading our way around Labor Day. The next weekend I was helping with a wedding in Tampa, so my friends and I watched the storm with great interest. And we waited. Irma was going further and further East, the wedding was safe. And we waited. And went to Walmart for Spam and Gatorade, just in case. We filled many things with water. The Keys and the Miami area were placed under mandatory evacuation. We waited.
One glorious thing was the number of friends and family who called to ask if we were prepared and if we needed somewhere to stay. Thank you to each and every one of you. One frustrating thing was that the places first evacuated were south of us, and there is only one way out of Florida — north! They all had to come through Central Florida, and they all needed gas to get away from their homes. They were required to leave, we were not, so we began to “hunker down.”
Then Irma began to move west. Thursday I went to Tampa to decorate the tables for the rehearsal dinner. Irma shifted it’s course from mid-Florida all the way to the Gulf coast. My friend and I left at 4 a.m. Friday to beat traffic back to Orlando. We waited. The roads became blocked with people evacuating from the west coast. We heard the phrase “hunker down” no fewer than 10 times an hour! The four local tv stations began running weather 24 hours/day. We waited. We hunkered! Sunday services were canceled. Cady, Kevin and the girls moved in with us Saturday night to ride out the storm. We waited.
Irma arrived and she was a BIG blustery storm. Cady and Andy were up most of the night until the eyewall passed barely west of Orlando. We were very blessed that though it flickered, we never lost power!!! Every noise, every gust was gut wrenching, waiting for something to come through a window, or for the power to go out completely. It took more than 24 hours for the winds to finally die down, though we were able to go out and survey damage by late Monday morning. Our home and our neighborhood, which was built after Hurricane Andrew in 1992 (thus under new building codes), stood strong. The roof lost lots of shingle pieces, but thankfully we didn’t have any leaks. The “green belt” nature area behind our house was certainly less green — lots of leaves, needles and small branches gone. Cady and Kevin’s home likewise had very little damage — the two large oak trees in their front yard stayed standing! They did lose power and didn’t get it back until Thursday morning so they stayed with us till then.
One thing that helped keep us sane was allowing Khloe to watch her favorite movie, Moana (a Disney movie), several times a day. Moana, a girl from a Pacific Island, has a sidekick — a very confused chicken named, HeiHei. He bumbles his way through the movie, much like Mr. Magoo. When offered food he often pecks the ground instead. At one point he eats a rock, then coughs it back up. I think he well represents how all of us felt in the days after the storm — dazed, confused, wanting “normal” but just pecking at the ground. We were very, very blessed, thank you for your prayers, and will continue to “hunker down” to find normal again. Please continue to pray for those affected by the Trio — Harvey, Irma and now Maria.
We love you, each and all,
The Kelloggs 