Sep 17
5
Irma is heading for us
To all concerned – thank you. We will take all of your thoughts, and prayers, and finger crossings that this experience is just that and not something catastrophic. To ease your minds and hearts I will tell you a little of what we have done so far to prepare ourselves for a hurricane now clocking 190 mile per hour winds.
The house we chose is up high away from the coast – on purpose. Although we can see the ocean from our balcony and back yard it is very far below us. We are not in the tidal zone – no where near storm surges.
The house we are in has survived a number of hurricanes with only broken windows. So flooding and building falling down seem unlikely.
We have shutters for the north and west sides of our house – because that is the direction that the highest winds will hit us. You can see a picture of Jesse putting up the hurricane shutters below. Once they are up the house is hot and dark. Like living in a tin can.
Going into town for supplies has been an intense experience. Lines run outside the store. People primarily buying water, ice, food, and gasoline.
When our land lords came to prep the house for the storm they told us that we needed to strap our propane tank down to the house (see picture below) and sand bag the doors. I looked at him confused. Where would we get sand bags? At the beach of course. So last night Marion and Jesse went to our local beach, surrounded by young lovers out for an evening stroll – they start shoveling sand into garbage bags until a woman came up asking them when they were bringing the sand back? Jesse said “after the storm?” right?
Speaking of sand bags – we have seen many people just digging up the ground and putting it into garbage bags to use as sand bags!
My sister (having seen her fair share of hurricanes) advised us on obtaining many buckets and mops and towels because as the storm happens water seeps in through the doors and windows. It will be like bailing out a sinking ship.
Another interesting thing we have learned is that Puerto Rico shuts down the whole power grid to limit deaths by electricity. So we will loose power on purpose Wednesday evening. Who knows when it will come back on? We have heard anything from a week to 4 months!
Car has gas. House is full of food, water, and ice. Batteries are charged.
If you hear nothing from us after the storm – don’t panic. We should be fine. Just can’t get any service or power.
