Glad Tiddings!

[RJNorton]

Thanks, Betty, for the posting. I remember several years ago you and my daughter exchanged emails on how Sarah was making money off advertising on her website. I had totally forgotten Sarah had your email address and was thoughtful enough to email you. We were able to talk to her briefly, but our cell service has been irregular.

Power came back last night, and I was happy to be able to wake up and log on this morning. Our home has been on an island since Sunday. The street is flooded half way up our driveway and flood waters in the back are about 5 feet from the patio. It's risky to try to go anywhere until the water recedes. There has been sporadic mail delivery and no newspaper delivery since Saturday.

On Sunday, the day of the storm, we had a battery-operated radio working, and about 4 P.M. they said it was time for Ft. Myers residents to go to their safe room. We gathered up the cat and went to the den. The eye of Hurricane Irma passed right over us. I do not know what the strongest gust was here, but the storm had weakened some since going over Naples to the south where a gust of 142 mph was recorded.

We were blessed. Despite having no storm shutters, our windows are intact. Our roof held. Our next door neighbor's tree fell, but it fell outward toward the street and not on our (or their) houses. We were most worried about the garage door blowing in, but we backed both cars to touching the door to act as a brace and hopefully preventing the door from collapsing. It worked.

The northeast quadrant, the most powerful part of the storm, missed us slightly to the east, and we were so lucky to have missed that.

Hurricanes go with the territory with living in Florida. But this one was far more scary than the others (including Hurricane Charley) that we have lived through. It will be a long time before the Sunshine State is totally back to normal. Many people had their homes destroyed and lives terribly disrupted. Areas in Florida that had never before seen flood waters are now flooded.

I will be surprised if Hurricane Irma is not the most expensive storm in American history.

Vicki and I, and Addison (our cat), feel blessed and most fortunate.

Photo of our block taken from our driveway