Survive a hurricane

It has been well over a week since I last posted, and what a hell of a time it has been. On Friday, September 30, Hurricane Matthew was in the Caribbean and was predicted to head up the east coast of Florida. Not too much to worry about according to my meteorologist friend Al. He said the forecast had it 400 miles out in the Atlantic ocean, but he said to keep an eye on it. It was going to be on our coast.

Friday Forecast for Matthew

By Tuesday, October 4, it was not looking good. The models had moved it to the West with a potential of landfall in central Florida. Wait a minute, I live in Central Florida.

Tuesday Forecast for Matthew

Now it was decision time.  I use to tell myself that if a major hurricane was going to hit Brevard County, I would evacuate. I moved to Florida in the summer of 1979. NOAA has a cool web site where you can find the storms in the tropics and by using filters, select a place and time frame. This is what shows up for me in my town since 1979. Melbourne is south of Cape Canaveral which juts out into the Atlantic Ocean.

Six Hurricanes that have hit within 65 Nautical miles of Melbourne Florida

Erin in 1995 and Irene in 1999 were both Category 1 and I stayed at home for those. Rain and wind but not much to remember. Maybe I was too young to care. Then 2004, that was a different story, three hurricanes passed by Melbourne that year!

David hit in 1979 over Labor Day Weekend.  It was my first summer in Florida and I was living with my parents in a trailer park near the Pineda Causeway. It was devastating in the Carribean but then it died out. No one paid attention but it made it through the Bahamas and came our way. I have included the track...

Track for Hurricane David in 1979

I can say that I did evacuate the trailer with my parents. The decision was easy. We stayed in the area. My Uncle had a house in Eau Gallie where we spent the time listening to Jerry Lewis on the Telethon. The eye came over us during the night and we went outside and saw the stars. Then the wind changed 180 degrees and starting blowing hard again. My parent's trailer faired well but we lost some of the aluminum porch and there was water damage inside from leaky windows. My biggest lost was my Farrah Fawcett poster in her swimsuit which was sitting in the closet near the floor. It was soaked through. I started to work as a temp for FPL immediately following the storm. I was a messenger between the main office in Melbourne with the workers out at the sub-stations. I traveled both A1A and US 1 and I got a first hand look at the destruction. It was only a category 1 but the infrastructure took a beating. No signs, traffic signals, and many trees  had some damage. I thought to myself, you must be a fool to want to live in a place that has storms like this. I was only 22.

When the eye was over Melbourne, I saw the stars

In 2004, the first storm to hit Florida was Charley. It was a Category 4 when it hit then it followed Interstate 4 across the state through Orlando on its way to Daytona Beach. No evacuation but it was a wake up call on the destruction made from a hurricane. The next to come was Frances, I have included the track...

Track of Hurricane Frances

 Again, I did evacuate from Melbourne to stay with my sister Patsy and her daughter Lori in Clermont. This time the eye came ashore south of us, putting Melbourne to the NorthEast of the eye, the worse quadrant to have. Funny thing is the storm hit us in Clermont too. It was only a tropical storm there but it did lots of wind damage.When I finally was able to get home, it took three days before the roads were completely opened, I found that my roof on my house had lost most of the shingles and I had extensive water damage inside. My neighbor Steve help me put a blue tarp over the roof until I could get a roofer to come out. You have to realize that thousands of roofs needed repair and could take months. But then, in about three weeks, Hurricane Jeanne was headed our way, track included...

Track of Hurricane Jeanne

Now what do I do? It was strengthening and heading right toward us and my roof was a blue tarp, nailed on as a short term fix. I knew I wanted to be closer to the house so I could get back quicker to get things covered. I was assuming the rest of the roof would blow off with this latest hurricane. So I stayed down the street so I could check the house immediately after the storm left. Amazingly, we made it through okay and the tarp held.  I had some damage but it was minimal for what had just passed by.

Then 12 years past, we do not see a single hurricane pass within 65 miles of Melbourne in all that time.  We knew our luck would change and it did, last week....The report on Thursday morning did not look good, I needed to make a decision and make it soon...

Forecast for Hurricane Matthew on Thursday morning

Yup, that M (> 110 mph sustained winds) was crossing over my house!!!