Two weeks after Hurricane Helene passed over northern Florida a second one (Milton) formed in the gulf and headed toward Florida. This time the track took it very near where we live, in central Florida. The forecasts started a week before Milton made landfall just south of Tampa on Wednesday night/Thursday morning. Milton was a category-five storm just before it reached the coastline and weakened to a category-three when it came to shore from the gulf.
Since we’ve only been here a little over three years, we asked our neighbors if they planned to evacuate – in our county, those living in modular, mobile homes, or homes built before 1994 were ordered to evacuate – none of our neighbors were leaving. Our home discussed on Monday night whether we should pack some clothes and head north. By Tuesday morning, so many were heading out of southern Florida that it made no sense to fight the traffic. All roads, including backroads, were bumper to bumper, and the interstate traffic was moving less than 20 miles per hour.
A trip was made to a local grocery store for things we knew we might need if we lost power and couldn’t cook for a few days. We moved some things indoors and tied all of our lanai (patio) furniture together. We were ready and we hunkered down waiting for Milton.
The wind picked up at about 8:30 Wednesday evening and continued to strengthen until about 3:00 Thursday morning. I’m 68 years old and have never witnessed or heard the wind as strong as it was about 2:00 Thursday morning – it’s a sound I don’t care to hear again. I kept waiting to hear parts of a very large Live Oak tree we have next to our home. Fortunately, there were very few larger branches, but a whole bunch of smaller ones we had to clean up on Thursday morning. We did the clean-up feeling thankful it was all we had to do.
Hurricane Milton produced 40 tornados that touched down and a record 136 tornado warnings.
People are still sitting in lines waiting for gasoline, and toilet paper left store shelves as fast as people could put it in their shopping carts.
Thankfully, the area we live in never lost power, and things will get back to normal quickly.
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The 2024 election is getting close, be sure you get out to vote – or you’ve already mailed your ballot. This is another election we’ll be happy to have behind us.
Have A Good Week!
