Monday, November 7, 2005

I meant to write sooner, but somehow I didn't have power when I had free time and then no free time when I had power.  As you might have heard on the news, a fairly powerful hurricane hit the southern half of Florida hard, with 98% of my county losing power.  I feel very fortunate as the storm moved quickly, starting as a category 3 (111-130 mph winds) and leaving as a category 2 (96-100 mph winds).  I'm sure you're wondering why that's fortunate.  To give you background, Wilma hovered over Mexico as a category 4 (131-155 mph) for over a full day.  I felt the winds for only a few hours and enjoyed them while they hit.  Okay, so I'm crazy, but everyone should be lucky enough to experience a hurricane.

I would make a hurricane ride at Disney World and vary the intensity each day so you wouldn't know ahead of time what category it would be.  People would keep coming back to feel them all. 

I went out in the storm with swim goggles on to protect my eyes from the driving winds.  I watched as my trees got buffeted about, pieces tearing off and flying by.  I saw my 30 foot mango tree stumble, lose it's balance and topple over.  I saw & heard roof tiles smashing about.  One of the most amazing sights was whitecaps in the canal behind my house.  It's usually smooth as glass.  The absolutely most incredible sight were the birds flying in the storm.  There weren't many who braved it.  Maybe they were the crazy fkrs like me who enjoyed the intensity & sheer powerful majesty of nature.

The eye of the storm hit the west coast of Florida at 6:30 AM and quickly was over me at about 9am.  There was quite a beautiful (if sad) light display of transformers blowing up in the morning (I lost power at 7ish) --- blue lights flashing over the horizon.  By 1 PM, most of the hurricane force winds had passed and it turned into a gorgeous day, with the temperature dropping into the high 60s with bright azure skies.  As I walked through my neighborhood, I couldn't believe how many downed trees there were.  Most of the giants who had survived last year's double whammy of Hurricanes Frances & Jeanne had fallen.  Lots of birds were sitting on the ground in these fallen masters looking cold & bedraggled.

More later...