Hello all, I thought I would share our story about Irma: As we prepared for Irma late last week, we went from “It looks like it’s going to miss us, but let’s prepare anyway”, to “this could be really bad, but we’ll be OK at home”, to evacuation in anticipation of a catastrophic hit. In that process, we resigned ourselves to the idea that flooding and/or structural damage to the house plus the total loss of our boat was highly likely. That realization was both sobering and enlightening. We figured out we could prepare for an extended uncertain future and fit much of what was really important to us (other than Astralis, of course!) in one car, and we gained a lot of clarity as to what is, and is not really important to us. Thankfully for us (though not for many here in Florida) Irma weakened dramatically after ravaging Marco Island about 3:30 PM and moved inland. We were fortunate enough to be able to seek protection in a senior living facility where my wife works. As I helped my wife assist the resident senior citizens (many with memory & physical disabilities), we put on calm faces while we anxiously waited for nearly 12 hours, expecting Irma to devastate Tampa. Then we watched as four things slowly happened: - Irma took a path inland a bit, robbing it of warm moisture from the Gulf, and directing the eye away from Tampa - The storm sped up from about 8 mph to 12-14 mph, indicating the storm would not stay long, and its strength would dissipate - Sheering winds bought dry air in from the east, which by late in the evening could be seen as wrapping nearly all the way around the eye reducing the power of the hurricane - The winds dropped on the west/southwest side of the storm, virtually eliminated the destructive storm surge that had been predicted – Massive amounts of water had been sucked out of Tampa Bay, but the expected 8+ feet of storm surge didn’t materialize, and it returned without much fanfare The final chapter of this short story is that we got to Astralis, our 1994 C&C 37/40+ yesterday, and found that she was floating nicely, the rudder had been jammed over from sitting on the sandy bottom but was otherwise OK, and we there was evidence of 2 previously unknown minor deck leaks over the stern berth. Everything else was remarkably fine. The marina had already replaced a torn-out lonesome post, and it was clear to us that had the storm hit much harder, things would have been very, very different. A little bit of further irony struck us as we realized that when we bought her on February 1st, she sat down in Marco Island. Had we not moved her to Tampa, she would have likely been a total loss.
This was our first hurricane, having moved to Florida from Chicago only 2 years ago. We had a chance to see, first hand, how communities pull together to prepare for hurricanes, hunker down and help ease each other’s fears as they grasp the idea of losing their homes and most prized possessions, and help clean up the aftermath. Yet, our local damage is nothing like that incurred by so many others across the state. Gratefully, Bruce Whitmore (847) 404-5092 (mobile) bwhitm...@sbcglobal.net
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