My plastic yard flamingos survived their second hurricane, unmoved.
Around midnight Sunday, I began to question my decision to ride out Irma in a little oceanfront condo in south Cocoa Beach, especially considering that my mother-in-law was a hunkering down in the next room on my recommendation. I'd had my wife evacuate her to Cocoa Beach from her home in the projected path on the west coast. A storm passing 100 miles away shouldn't be a threat. Right? But, with no Weather Channel updates since the power went out at 7:30, and the intensity of the noise outside, I couldn't be certain that the storm hadn't taken a hard turn and was hitting Cocoa Beach directly. My doubts began when the first air conditioner blew off the roof and into the pool. I had an idea what it might be but with all shutters closed I couldn't be sure that it wasn't a Cessna. We all eventually managed to drift off to sleep in the absence of a shutter failure and woke early wondering what sunrise would reveal.
Not bad. No catastrophic building failures were visible in our immediate area but most every building was showing some signs of damage with older buildings faring the worst. Elsewhere Cocoa Beach had a few buildings that are probably total losses like the Sea Aire Motel and the funeral home among others. The downtown area was especially hard hit with many commercial buildings losing their roofs including my office and the Police Department/City Hall. It's now six days later and many areas of Cocoa Beach are still without power including my neighbors right across A1A in south Cocoa Beach and most of downtown. Water supply to Cocoa Beach was lost during the storm but most properties had water restored by Wednesday. During the waterless days I, like many residents, used a debris filled pool for my daily bath and as a water supply for flushing toilets.
Some traffic lights are working today and a few businesses have reopened. I just heard that downtown will likely not have power restored until after the weekend. Overall, we were fortunate to escape with the damage we had. I know those who suffered the greater damages or those still without power don't feel very lucky but it only takes a look at the Keys to confirm our fortune.
I won't try to detail all impacts but thought those who aren't here would appreciate some report of the impact. We are battered, bruised but still standing and, some of us, looking forward to a cooked meal.
"Get up, stand up: don't give up the fight." __Bob Marley
It's hard to imagine much damage since you just evacuate. we left this Time to Niagara falls from our condo beside Winn Dixie . The news and neighbors said it looks pretty bad but it only came in at a cat 1 or 2 compared to Mathew 3 .I don't know what to expect. Seems realeaste isn't stagiment or going down, but continuing to rise in prices. Can't imagine what the after effects of Irma are because I haven't been back since. What's your perspective of the market trend at this time. I came back after Matthew, the power was on the next day. Yes it looked like pretty beaten up - in the backyard- trees down, aluminium damage etc. Lucky no flooding that part of Cocoa Beach (Ron Jobs, Winn-Dixie) Larry, love reading your blog- keeps me up to date. From my end, no more September-October trips down. Glad to stay up North those months. Can't handle back to back evacuations.
ReplyDeleteMarket appears to be unfazed by the storm other than the week and a half or so that we were unable to close anything because of no new insurance policies. The imbalance of demand and supply should continue to influence prices higher. Long term? We'll see. Matthew seemed to have no effect on demand last year.
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