Hurricane Update

Friday night I said it looked like the Orlando area did not sustain major damage. Boy, was I wrong. The damage is severe. I drove down 192 through Kissimmee last night on my way to work and it was bad. 90% of Kissimmee has no power. Only 1 or 2 traffic lights were working. Many of the traffic lights were laying in the median or on the side of the road. Billboards were bent down into buildings or just twisted. I don't remember seeing a single business sign that was not damaged, if not completely destroyed. Trees were down everywhere. There is no power at most, if not all, of the hotels east of Interstate 4. The hotel I work at had no power, the sign and marqee were destroyed, most of the trees were mangled, branches and chunks of trees were everywhere and a tree was leaning against some power lines and looks like it may fall at any time. During the storm a tree fell on 3 cars and destroyed them.

The maintenance man and I tried to get a generator working but the carburator had a bad gasket and kept leaking. We managed to get it working for a few hours and I caught up on some work in the computer but it started leaking again and shut down. None of the rooms have any power at all and I was amazed that people were still coming in wanting to rent rooms. I tried hard to discourage them but I guess they were out of options.

The lobby had no A/C of course. It was unbearable and I was wearing a tank top and shorts. I didn't expect anyone to come in. I guess it was because we had a light in the lobby people kept pulling up. The entire road was dark. The only lights were from a police car at the intersection. I would hear him say "Go straight or make a u-turn" on the loudspeaker at regular intervals. They were not letting anyone make a left. The maintenance man is a friend of mine and he sat with me in the lobby. We had to keep the doors open and plugged in a fan to be able to stand it. There were police cars going up and down the street with their lights on and they would shine a spotlight into the parking lots on occasion. We were a little nervous when we had to siphon gas out of his motor home for the generator and we had a good laugh but no police came by. The gas stations that can pump gas are few and far between and the lines are long, long, long. Personally, I decided not to wait. I have some gas for the lawn mower I can put in my car if I have to, but I think power is finally coming back on. At least in Saint Cloud. They are saying it could be 5 to 7 days for Kissimmee.

Our house was without power from Friday at about 4 pm until Sunday at 12:10 pm. I know exactly what time because I couldn't have been happier about it. It is absolutely miserable in Florida with no A/C (and no fans). At least for me it is, and with no power I had no water to take a shower. I went to work early and took a shower in a room just so I could stand myself. At least for 5 minutes. I took another shower before I left. Irma and the kids went to her mother's house because she had power there but it is too far from work for me.

I will try to get pictures of the damage to some hotels. I work at night so it's not too easy.

Uh oh, power just went out again. Better shut down. I hope this isn't long.