Peeps From FLORIDA ! Check in

[Tydriver]

Hope you guys are alright down there. I see the Hurricane's eye passed right over Orlando. Warren you still around ?


CNN is saying that they havent had a similiar hurricane (west to east movement) since 1960 (Hurricane Donna).

They also said that they have only had a dozen or so Cat 4's in the last 100 years !

Sheeeeesh.. Hope everyones alright.

 

[Syclone#1992]

Just thinking about that myself. Any one got their numbers, so we can find out. It looks pretty bad on the news. :-?

 

[Tydriver]

I'm guessing most peeps are out of power :-( .. The said theres over 1 mil peeps with no electricity, and another Hurricane about a week out (Daniel).

 

[SpoolingTurbo6]

re

re

Sothern Penellas co. Checking in

I did go south of us here

hope you guys are OK

 

[Sy229]

I flew back on Thursday from a work trip in Colorado to make preparations. We were very fortunate in the Tampa Bay area as Charley decided to turn inland early.

We spoke to Ian (Orlando area) last night. It got scary for them for awhile, they lost power and siding from their apartment but the building stayed intact. Similar story for Adam in his new home in the Lakeland area. Hopefully we'll hear from them and others soon as they get power and internet service restored.

:scatter:

 

[SYO237]

Im alive.

We got sustained winds around 55mph with gusts up to 65-70. Our neighborhood came out great, with very little damage other than a few downed small trees and a few roof shingles.

We got lucky in that the eye passed southeast of us, so my part of Polk County as minimal damage. South Polk got torn apart...im hearing reports of major roads closed, sinkholes that swallowed cars, power out for 300,000 people.... sucks.

The pontiac made it without a scrape, which im not happy about.


My parents, who live in Oviedo and about 2 minutes from Ian didnt do so well....they are alive, but the eye passed directly over them with winds up to 84mph.

My parents backyard is mostly woods.... its now a pile of debris. Most everything was uprooted and flattened. The whole neighboorhood, no one has a tree standing and the roads where blocked everywhere with downed trees. They just got power back and the phones back (Sat 14, 10am). Roofs are off, trees laying on houses....

They said there was so much shit piled up in the driveway, the cars couldnt come out of the garage.



Hurricane Charly hit FL as a Category 4 (145mph winds), but the time it reached us, it was a Cat 2/3, Orlando got it as a Cat 1. The damn thing is STILL going as a hurricane and slammnig into the Carolinas.

I think the worst part...everyone who evacuated Tampa and fled to Orlando to get to safe harbor just got slammed while Tampa basically got untouched.



Good luck to everyone in the Carolinas, be safe.

 

[tealty]

Im ok too. My neighborhood is f'ed up though. I had to move a tree to get my zuki out today to go ride around. Christian's neighborhood is wiped out....looks like a tornado went through there (I had to do a little motocrossing to get to his house). All the trees are laying out in the road and the water main is broken and electricity is gone. I have electric here though (thank god), but all the street lights don't work. Most people in florida don't know how to drive when everything is in perfect working order, now imagine those same people driving with street lights not working and trees blocking roads. My cell doesnt work I guess from the cell towers. The eye (or what was left of it) went through my neighborhood and I went outside and got shaken like a rag doll and i was knocked down a few times...it was pretty sic. People are out now cutting up trees. Some hardcores are even using hacksaws and handsaws. Thanks god the tystang didnt get hurt. There was a tree that literally landed about a foot away from it.
later
Jordan

 

[1BADSUV]

FL

FL

In my area, the worst event to happen is the power went out.

 

[Loeryder]

We have family in Winter Park just outside Orlando and while they do not have power all they saw was roof damage and trees / fances down.

IWon reports 15 dead, 10 of them form a mobile home park.
Seriously, living in a mobile home througha hurricane.
I think I woulda left at first sight of a gust of wind.

Anyhow, hope everyone else came thoruhg ok and secondly hope all the SyTys escaped harm as well.

 

[tealty]

I just got back from publix and the power is out in there too. People are shopping in the dark and the registers are on battery backup. All the frozen foods/meats are trashed....its hilarious. Water mains are broken too. I feel like im living in a third world country right now.....its awesome. Some guys brand new explorer ext got a tree put through it. I also seen several people on bicycles almost get ran over by cars b/c the sidewalks are full of trees and debris, so they have to share the roads.
later
Jordan

 

[champ7fl]

For once it's raining every where in Florida except for Miami. Hope everyone's alright, and those that have checked in it's good to know things are ok. Glad it didn't hit me though... the last real hurricane that went through Miami took my house with it. Andrew back in 92 destroyed my house. I lived in the back yard for 2 years while it was being rebuilt. I was just a kid, but that memory still haunts me. I'm terrified of big hurricanes like that. Like I said, I hope everyone's doing alright, best of luck, and I hope you get power back soon.

 

[MRKING]

It never came

It never came

I live in what they say the path was suppost to be , and it hasnt rained hard until today ,except for the light drizzle yesterday morning , which quickly cleared up . I feel bad for everyone that completely boarded there whole houses up .

 

[champ7fl]

That's a nice pic you have there Mike. Is that a Ford Ranchero in the background? Those things are neat. Charley didn't cause anymore damage to #2042 did it? Keep me posted on that. Glad to see you're alright.

 

[MRKING]

coming along...

coming along...

Hey patrick , I have been working on her alot and she is undergoing alot of changes . She will no longer be 2042 like originally , Thanks to my man JOHN WALLER , who helped me out greatly by finding me a salvaged title and vin plate to register her with . She now is Syclone #309 . And proud of it. And to anyone who was curious about what would happen to Patricks truck , rest assured that she is in great hands and will be road worthy one again real soon . I will post pics soon , it will take at least a month to get her all straightened out ,because I want to make sure that it is done right so that I have to only do it one time . And oh yeah , patrick please save that rocker for me , we will have to work out a price .

 

[champ7fl]

Definately keep me posted. I'm just glad to see she didn't get blown away by charley. I'll be up that way a couple times before november. Friend of mine is getting married, planning the parties and getting tuxes and all that stuff. I'll definately call you up when I'm that way. I was trying to head up to Punta Gorda with Fire Rescue from down here, I ride with them every now and then... but I couldn't do this trip, liability or insurance I guess. Heard it was pretty bad though. They saw some stores and stuff leveled to the ground, couple injured people, some people a little freaked out. Mainly everyone was thankful to see help arrive, offering food and the like. That's what I was told, no first hand info from me. I know my girlfriend's apartment complex is still out of power in Orlando. That's pretty much all I know... hopefully more people chime in.

 

[canadian]

ok here goes:

most businesses closed here in orlando on friday around noon (if they were open at all) to make sure that most people were off the roads by 2pm and at home safe. figured i'd stop by publix just to pick up some more water in case we needed it. not a shopping cart in sight. picked up a bunch of water and charcoal just to be on the safe side.

the rest of friday was pretty normal until the eye started getting closer inland. some friends near downtown called and said there was a *lot* of stuff flying around and it would be reaching us soon.

the outer rain bands came in around 7:30 with some rain and nasty lightning. we were sitting in bed watching it on television when the whole bedroom lit up and the sound of lightning hitting something real close shook the windows. within minutes i could smell something burining.

once the rain died down i went outside to look around and see if we'd been hit. the next door neighbor comes out and says it was his place. hit the crown of the garage, shot across the attic, tagged the rain sensor, then blew out his sprinkler controller.... all while he was in the garage at the time.

by 8:30 we'd lost power in the subdivision and the rains and wind started picking up. like any dumbass would do, i stood on the porch watching the whole thing roll in. the sky was lit up every 5 to 15 seconds with the teal light of transformers blowing all across the city. it's like nothing you've ever seen before. it's eerie. combine that with the smell of pine and bark from all the trees in the conservation area snapping, it's real creepy.

for the next 2 hours i was in and out of the house, checking on the wife and dogs and watching it all unfold. after passing us, most of the neighbors were outside doing preliminary assesment. a handfull of houses lost soffits off the fronts/sides of the houses. since the community is less than 2 years old there were no large trees to take out houses.

the aftermath is pretty crappy. consider that florida is mainly sand and most of the old oaks have a very shallow (maybe 1.5 - 2 foot deep) root system and you start to realize than any tree older than 5-10 years is going to drop. old winter park is filled with 100 year old oak trees and that's one of the big selling points for the million+ dollar homes. most of those trees are blocking streets, etc.

our office building (where i am now with power) is right across a small lake from an executive airport. the carnage there is pretty bad. we drove by yesterday and saw about 30 cessnas trashed along with some mangled metal that could have been a plane at one time or another. the approach light towers are bent. some billboards have managed to survive, but the older ones didn't fare too well. we are about 10 miles from orlando international airport that reported some nasty winds. there are billboards where the metal "I" beams holding them up are physically bent in half. it looks like too spaghetti noodles bent over.

i pulled into the parking lot yesterday to find a 5 ton a/c unit that *used* to be on the roof sitting about 50 feet away in the parking lot. they've been trying to re-tar the place since yesterday (maybe even saturday). there's still no power at the office and it's about 95*. we're running on generator power with portable a/c units blowing hot air from the data center into the hallways.

our operations department was here during the whole situation just showed me some video of the aftermath. glass windows smashed and shards stuck into drywall, the a/c unit in the parking lot. all in all it hit the office pretty hard but we're still chugging along.

all this is a pittance compared to punta gorda and port charlotte who got hammered when it hit. my father-in-law went down there this weekend to offer assistance to another state farm office since there are no phones/power down there. i'm sure he'll be taking pictures.

all in all, i managed to get out with nothing more than a section of fence falling over that i had back up saturday morning. i just hope that the next one prepping doesn't come back to hit us and take out what's left of what's standing. it's gonna be a long clean up and there's going to be a $hit load of firewood available.

as for ice? you couldn't find ice within 40 miles of orlando starting saturday morning. one gas station sold 600 bags of ice in an hour. home depot was retarded. computers went down and they were doing things by hand. the credit card processing systems of the major credit card companies had trouble keeping up (if at all, i heard they crashed on sunday). gas station lines are huge, stoplights are still out in some areas. i think there are more people hurt because of car accidents now than from the hurricane.

keep up hope for those farther south and that we don't get hit again. after something like this you realize what you *should* have stocked up on before it hit. i'll be better prepared for the next one.

 

[blk00z28]

I'm in the Mt Dora, Eustis, Grand Island area, and the only thing we got was a good bit of rain. The winds I dont think they ever got to 40mph.. :roll:

 

[TY1937]

All is OK here in Viera on the east coast of FL near the cape... only damage was to a screen in the lanai... we were lucky... no damage or loss of power...

Friday afternoon we got my neighbors gas generator running and lots of gas to keep it going and lots of extensiom cords ready if needed... didn't need it but we were ready...

I hope all those hit badly get relief and help soon...

Doug

 

[Ian Turgeon]

long story short im not far from Warren, my phone/power is still out, we spent 3 days w/o ac, and cant sleep enough to be able to work durring the day. Bummed a place from a friend and slept on a air matress in the living room.

Wife threw out her back preparing for the storm, and now shes in so much pain she cant sit at work. We're staying in a hotel tonight and tomorrow in hopes that our power will be back by then.

Our buildings are structurly ok, lost lots of vinyl siding which flew around and caused damage. neighbors with broken windows, fortunately all the trees that fell, missed cars and such.

Syclone's garage was happy, no damage.

I went out and got some pics, more than anything its nuts just trying to get anything you need. We waited in line (out the door) at arby's for a meal on saturday. They were writing orders down, and you could get anything you wanted as long as it came out of the fryer.

nobody has any supplies, few gas stations have gas ( and theres 40 minute lines at those that do )

We dont have a cross breeze, and with no ac, its painfull to try and sleep.. thankfully a cold shower is there to cool off.

I've got pics, but will have to wait till I get power to get them off my camera.

The thing is that the insurance claims for everyone is going to take months. They arent even working on our complex because they have to wait for the insurance, which could easily make it a month or two before anything happens.

seeing 20 electric trucks go by, all from different states is quite impressive. Those guys are busting ass to get us all back up and running.

 

[Ian Turgeon]

getting ready to go to the hotel today, power came on, and its been on for about an hour now, so I think we may be in luck now.

Unfortunately it wasn't till after we made our reservations at the hotel.

However I just called and they were desperate for the room, so rather then have a little vacation, we were able to give it up to people who definately need it more then us.

I'll have pics avail soon, gotta go get some food for the crippled wife and I.