So, my sister sent me last week’s blog that got published on October 4th. I’m sitting here on October 4th writing the next chapter. I decided to do the list of 10 things I have learned.
1. LEAVE - If it is a Cat 4 or higher projected storm, we are out of here. We were too late to get out and were petrified that storm surge was going to cause us to lose our lives. Everything else can be replaced but not our lives.
2. Pick up anything you mentally say to yourself, “I should pick that up.” I had a handle of a reusable bag on the ground. That’s what caught my right foot and caused me to fall. If I’d have taken that little millisecond of time to do, I could have saved myself and my family so much!!!
3. We have some great family and friends. I have one of my daughters and my sister coming to help out while my husband has some business trips scheduled. Our one son had a friend that drove over from Miami with gas, water, and other essentials Friday after the storm on Wednesday. Then we found out he was leaving on Saturday to head out to Kuwait for a year. We appreciate his service and his dropping of everything to head our way.
4. Sewing with my left foot. I found out that yes, I can sew with my left foot. It takes me longer but thank God. Did I mention my right foot will be out of action until December?…I can’t even drive.
5. Electricity is such a good thing. It’s October 4th and Hurricane Ian came thru on 9/28. We still don’t have electricity. They are saying 95% up by October 8th.
6. Ford F150 - but a PowerBoost - their word for a hybrid. When we moved into this new house, we were considering what we were going to use for a generator. We had a whole house generator installed in our last house and weren’t sure about this house. Tim and I have reached the conclusion that we will always have a car payment - Tim loves the latest tech and gadgets for his vehicles, and we will always have at least one dog. This is me. I love my dogs. So, Tim researched getting the Ford F150 Lightning which is an electric truck that will work as a whole house generator but the back order was incredible. Plus, we would have to have a special plug etc in our house. He researched it and decided the PowerBoost would work even better as a generator. Let me just say - BEST CHOICE! Remember we have no power. Our electrician put in a panel next to our regular panel for the generator power. Let me just say, we have been running the truck 24 hours a day. It powers our most essential parts of our house. It’s quiet and uses about 1/4 tank of gas for 24 hours. This is certainly one car payment I don’t mind making!
7. Running water - our water went out when the storm hit us. We were getting hurricane winds from 10 am until 7:30 pm. We had filled up our bathtub with water because my husband’s sister in the Orlando area said she was prepared with even water in the tub. Thank goodness we did. That was the water to make sure our toilets flushed. We had plenty of bottled water but with our pool in the middle of remodeling, we didn’t have that big of a water source available.
8. Injury constriction: So, I had surgery on Tuesday and the hurricane hit on Wednesday. When I went into surgery, they said it wouldn’t be a Cat 3 for very long and storm surge was 3-5 foot. I was told after surgery, don’t get it wet. If you do, get to doctors or ER immediately to have it cleaned and rewrapped. So, after surgery, we thought we’d just stay because it won’t be too bad. We woke up Wednesday morning and storm surge had changed from 3-5 foot to 12-18 foot. And by the way, it’s too late to evacuate. We had the “dirty” side of the hurricane over us for over 8 1/2 hours on Wednesday. Yes, we were scared. We watched the water rise and were petrified.
We put the life vest on the girls and my leg cover on so if we had to get out, it wouldn’t be too bad. Finally, around 9 pm that night after high tide had come thru the water started to recede. Our neighbor that has lived here for 20 years said it was the highest the water had ever been from a storm. Can I help clean up? - NOPE - I have a knee scooter. I do have a cute little basket but it definitely can’t hold anything of substance.
9. Neighbors: Due to Tim being in IT, he has 2 sources of internet running into our house. With the power from the truck generator, we have had internet for all but about 2 hours. Obviously, we had let our neighbors come use our internet, watched the streaming news and anything else here. I know if I show up at my neighbors’ houses, they would do anything to help us too.
10. Customers - Let me just say - so many of you reached out to me about both my leg and the hurricane. I put my ebay store on vacation mode but people can still buy from it. I have had orders galore and lots of, “if you need to cancel this order until you are better, then do it.” I got paper daisies from Kellie! She said she was going to send me flowers until she found this popup card with the daisies - how perfect. Put a smile on my face.
So, I know this is all over the place but just wanted to touch base and let you know how I’m doing. We are grateful to God that he has helped us so much.
THANK YOU!