It's Over, Goodbye Charley

Before the hurricane reached us we had a couple of feeder bands that really kicked out some lightning. The first one was about the 2pm hour and woke me up, mostly because it suddenly got windy and knocked down something from the window sill. Later, it rained hard and the wind roared, lasting about 3 hours. The trees were being whipped to a frenzy and there are 3 or 4 branches down. We didn't lose any trees. The side of the car is plastered with leaves. I tried to take some pictures but it is too dark.

The eye passed just west of us. We lost power early, just as I was about to put some chicken in the oven. Oh well. I hope the power comes back on soon but power seems to have been lost all over the Orlando area so it might be a while. On the news they said 2 or 3 days. I hope they are exaggerating. It's hot. There doesn't seem to have been any major damage in the Orlando area but of course it will have to wait until the sun comes up to really be able to tell.

Our house seemed to be in a bubble and we were not buffeted by the wind the way I thought we would be. I never for a moment felt as though the wind even hit the house directly. No shaking, no noise from the house. We had the front window open and it was relatively calm at the window. Go out about 5 feet and the wind was scary. There was no driving rain hitting any of our windows but it was very bad beyond our house. The yard is a mess.

We kept hearing the cows complaining about the storm. It was hard to hear them over the roar of the storm. Irma thought maybe one got hit by a tree. I took a powerful flashlight out and they were all just laying near the fence behind our neighbors house and next to ours. They looked like nothing was happening, just chewing the cud. I tried for a picture but you can't tell what it is. I will take some pictures in the morning. I can hear the cows now. Moooo. The wind has died down to virtually nothing. If only the power would come back on it would be like nothing happened.

The kids were fine through the storm. Joshua played his Game Boy the whole time and James mostly watched. James was a little nervous, he really didn't understand what was happening, and Joshua kept telling him the house was going to fly away. I reassured him and he was amazed at the wind and the fallen branches. I told him he could help me clean them up. He likes that. He wants to ride his bike at wake up time.

That's it, it's over.