HURRICANE MILTON 2024

 MILTON WAS NOT NICE

This second hurricane of 2024 brought a lot of wind, more than we've known in previous storms. Fortunately our only damage was some screens torn by falling limbs. We rolled down all the hurricane shutters and felt pretty secure in our home. It's very dark inside with all the shutters rolled down. 

The Starlink antenna was not damaged in the storm so we had excellent internet throughout the ordeal. 

In anticipation for the storm we removed the canvas covers from the chicken runs. 

A massive dead pine tree fell over during the storm, the loud wind masked the boom of it hitting the Earth. 

The storm passed directly over us around 2AM, when we got up in the morning all that was left was the mess to clean up. 

We're safe and all our chickens made it through the storm safely so we're blessed.

 

HURRICANE NICOLE 2022

We Love Chickens, Not Hurricanes

Thursday Morning, dealing with tarps in 7-24mph wind LOL

Hurricane Nicole came to visit us in mid November. She began to show herself on Wednesday Nov 9th during the day light hours, the wind was picking up and we had some rain off and on. I was out on the driveway a lot mounting a couple of video cameras so we can see cars coming and going and keep an eye on things from the safety of the P2 Master Control Room (aka kitchen). When we went to bed around 9PM we were having 6mph wind according to our West weather station. 

HURRICANE IAN, SEPTEMBER 2022, MELBOURNE FL PERSPECTIVE

IT'S STILL SEPTEMBER FOR THREE MORE DAYS 

SEPT = MIDDLE OF HURRICANE SEASON 

Getting ready for the boogie

OUR HURRICANE HISTORY

We bought our home in Florida December 4th, 2014 and we had no hurricane that year.

2015 was another non-hurricane year, thankfully because we were unprepared.

2016, October 7, hurricane MATTHEW came into our lives. Fortunately it had minimal impact on us thanks to the Australian pine trees around the perimeter of our property.

2017, September 5th, hurricane IRMA introduced herself. We put plywood over the windows and left it for two years.

2018, no hurricane :-)  JULY 13, 2018 Roll Tite Shutters Installation Complete

2019, September 3rd, hurricane DORIAN made his appearance. Fortunately for us Dorian got stuck over the Bahamas and then turned right and headed North. His breakthrough Category 6 wind never came near us.

2020 September 15th, New roof installation

2020, No hurricane (October 7th cancer surgery instead), 

2021, No hurricane

2022, September 28, hurricane IAN came and stayed for a while. Fortunately for us he entered the state in Fort Myers / Naples area. It was a tropical storm by the time it was over Melbourne, Florida.

REMEMBERING HURRICANE ANDREW

What do we do when we're waiting out a hurricane? We study previous hurricanes to judge their effects and how they played out.

The BIG ONE came in 1992, his name was Andrew and he slammed into the Florida coast line at a reported 187mph, well over the speed required to be a Category 5. The destruction at the point of landfall was devestating, it went straight inland and flattened Homestead Florida. FLATTENED! Cat 5 is not to be played with, seek emergency shelter away from where the landfall is going to occur.

The good news from studying these storm disasters comes in the knowledge that the moment a hurricane makes landfall in Florida the intensity immediately goes down a lot. The size and speed of Andrew meant he went inland a bit before losing intensity but 20 miles away damage was minimal because the storm lost so much energy as it thrashed Homestead Florida.

There is complete information about Hurricane Andrew on Wiki.

Hurricane Dorian Top Wind Gust Speed: 23 mph

Hurricane Dorian - Tuesday, Sept 3rd 6pm Wind Speed Actual vs Forecast

Forecast right now:  36 mph winds

Actual wind speed 6pm: 4mph

P2 Plants Pre and Post Hurricane Dorian

Here's Monday, 9/2/2019 at 8am EST before the hurricane.

Hurricane Primer - Cat-a-gories

A helpful reminder...

Hurricane Dorian Cat 4

NPR Joins Hurricane Hype

New headline as the models are updated to a "farther north" hurricane Monday.  Note, the prior impact was Sunday.  LOTS to happen between now and Sunday/Monday, yet the headlines are starting to get everyone ramped up.  My bet (Mary) is that it will fizzle at sea and be a breezy day for us.  Either way, we're ready!  It's fun to watch the models predict right now.  Thanks to Mike's Weather Page for keeping us informed with his spot-on analysis.

Tropical Storm Dorian 2019

On Sunday, we're either going to have a Cat 2 Hurricane, or a nice breezy Florida day.  It's amazing that it's Wednesday and we can't accurately predict.

FUN PHOTOS AS DORIAN HYPE RAMPS UP

Fox News is quickly ramping up the hype in spite of the fact weather scientists still can't accurately say what the path of the storm is.

HURRICANE IRMA NHC PREDICTION MAPS LEADING TO LANDFALL 2017

HURRICANE IRMA NHC PREDICTION MAPS

I collected these as we waited for Irma to make her way up through Florida. From the first to the last it's easy to see why this was such a confusing hurricane for everyone including meteorologists and regular people trying to protect their possessions. 

HURRICANE IRMA SEPT 2017 LOG

HURRICANE IRMA LOG

PRELUDE - Getting ready for a hurricane is the worst part. After you've got the house all boarded up it's dark inside and you can't see out easily. First the rain, then the wind and the wondering about what's happening outside.

PEA FRIENDS AND THE HURRICANE

As the hurricane revved up peafowl used our carport as a haven to escape the punishing torrential rain.

Peafowl hiding in the carport

Peafowl hiding in the carport

GENERATOR TEST FOR HURRICANE IRMA
As the storm turned a little north today and potentially heads our direction I thought it would be good to test our Generator which we bought last year.

I've used ethanol-free gas and Stabil to try and keep it ready to run. It started on the second pull of the rope and ran great. We are ready.

Now will it work after the storm passes through????

Bought Last 3 Pieces of 1/4" Plywood - Preparing for Hurricane Irma

The current path of Hurricane Irma shows that we'll get some wind next week but no direct hit... BUT since we waited until the last minute to buy plywood last year, we wanted to get a jump on it this year.

But we just learned that...  Everyone else shopped for plywood 2 days ago!  Nothing left at Home Depot, so we went to Lowe's and bought the last 3 pieces of 1/4" plywood just now.

Ready for Hurricane Irma JIC...  Good luck St. Martin, we're thinking about you.

MORE POST HURRICANE PICTURES FROM AROUND P2, HURRICANE MATHEW 2016

As we headed out to look around after the hurricane a single lone squirrel was calling down to me asking if I would please put out some black oil sunflower seed. I did and she thanked me profusely :-)

Here are the rest of the pictures.

AFTER THE HURRICANE MATHEW 2016

GETTING READY FOR HURRICANE MATTHEW 2016