I'm not looking forward to the mess that the FPS will be after this. Assuming I have an office to go back to. If I don't who knows where I'll be sent. If the southern parks get spared, some of the staff will go north amd west to help the parks that took more damage

Please be safe

A whole BUNCH of my letterboxes are planted between Tampa and Tallahassee, since I live in Tally and my parents -- recently deceased -- lived in Tampa. Just LOOK at that projected path! NONE of them are likely to survive! One of them was just recently replanted, having gone missing during Hermine, found by a cleanup crew, and returned to me! It's gonna go for another wild ride! I tied it down this time, but I doubt if my string can withstand 120 mph winds.

SWMBO has her own religion, summarized as "God is a hoot!" She says the whole reason that hurricane is taking that path is because I've been planting too many letterboxes in that lane. "It's all your fault!" she says.

The eye of the storm was getting too close to Ft Myers for me. So I have evacuated to Orlando. Isabeau's sweet sister is letting us stay at her place. My husband stayed at home with the dog. Will let you know how we are when it's all over.

Many if us in Florida are being criticized if we stay in Florida.

We were actually discussing this yesterday--how easy it is to judge others from up here in Ohio where any remnants fro hurricanes are minor in comparison. Such difficult decisions based on so many factors, so many unknowns. Keeping everyone in our prayers right now

I'm figuring all my Sanibel Island and Ft Myers boxes are going the way of the dodo. I don't get down there but around every couple of years, so I'm hoping people will report back, I know if I need to recarve, retire, or just bang my head on the desk.

Hope everyone and their families made it thru. They are saying days, not weeks, in terms of rebuilding the power grid. Lets hope so. Having been thru an extended power failure myself, its a rough experience, but it does end; hang in there (of course, you are not reading this, but hopefully you will be soon).

The forecasters were pretty accurate about the track Irma would take but underestimated how quickly it would fizzle. By the time it reached the Tallahassee area, it was barely a serious rainstorm. We lost power for 8 hours (our house is waaaay out in the boonies, we lose power all the time!) and we had one small tree fall across our driveway. All is good now.

Those folks down Ft. Myers way took hits, though. My grandparents lived in Naples, that area's about six inches above sea level. And it looks like Key West won't be the same for a while, either.

Miami had a bit of damage, too.

As for us, many of us in the Pinellas County area (Palm Harbor, St. Pete, Clearwater, Largo, etc) have no power and they told us to expect no power for up to a week. I'm hoping less than 3 days, so far it has been 24 hours. For some odd reason, my husband bought 3 gallons of ice cream, and that's all melted. The meat and everything else stayed frozen so far. Expecting weather back to the normal low 90s and humid tomorrow. Today was in the 80s and breezy, so not too bad.

We have a generator, but will wait until tomorrow to set it up, it's never been out of the box in 14 years! Too tired today to drag that out, and we only have 7 gallons if gas.. I did hear you only need to run it for an hour every 4 or 5 hours to keep the freezer frozen. Oh well. I'll be more ready if this ever happens again.

Tomorrow will go check on our condo that a on the beach. It has Cat 4 windows and sliders, but who knows what the above units have. We got about Cat 1 with higher gusts, depending who you talk to...

Saw a few houses with trees on them in Largo, which is where we bunkered down.

Street lights and stop lights not working, it was scary to drive home, very confusing at some of the intersections.

Ok, off to bed, I have to relieve the hurricane on call team at the hospital, at 630 am.. yippee.

Yup.... the eye went right over our side of town from what we hear. We have no idea the status of the house yet.

BB
in Four Corners....

How did you fair the storm Florida Four? I evacuated from Ft. Myers to Orlando and the storm followed me there! We didn't have damage in Orlando or at our house in Ft. Myers, thank goodness. We drove home yesterday. I-4 was a mess. Bumper to bumper and took us 2 hours to get to I-75. But then I-75 was a breeze. We finally got power back here this afternoon and I'm appreciating the air conditioning. Now, we wait for the gas stations to open. It was a stressful weekend and I'm glad it's over.

I live in Seattle and several rescues along with Seattle Humane brought up shelter dogs so that space could be opened up for dogs lost in the storm. The rescue I volunteer with was already bringing up dogs from Louisiana so that was good timing. The first thing I thought of were the pets. I was glad to see that pets were allowed at shelters but I'm sad that I still heard reports of pets tied to trees or fences.

We dodged a bullet, that's for sure. One screen broken on our lanai, and some leaves down off of the trees. Phew!

BB