I CORNER Posted September 28, 2004 Author Report Share Posted September 28, 2004 Well, we had the unbelievable bad luck to get 2 hurricanes pass directly over us in 3 weeks (3 weeks to the day within 1 hour of eachother) . Man, I need to start playing the lottery, after these low-probabilty events. Frances was a Category 2 with 105mph sustained winds and Jeanne was a Category 3 with 120mph sustained winds. Gusts run 20-30mph above the sustained winds. I live in south Stuart Florida about 5 miles north of a Hobe Sound Florida. The center of both storms officially made landfall on the beach off of the center of Stuart (Sewall's Point and Jensen Beach). However, as the eyes are so large in diameter and as the shoreline of Florida turns Westward below Hobe Sound, the eye walls of both storms actually made landfall first in Hobe Sound. So I was the lucky recipient to essentially get the highest winds of the eyewall first from both storms. We survived, but it was very scary. My house had several tarps and plastic from roof damage from Frances. The best that I could do was to nail a bunch of 1x3 strip boards over the tarps to keep them on. It worked! We had only 1 more leak and that was from the horizontal rain driven under my roof (soffitt sections destroyed from Frances and Jeanne). It leaked down thru the 2nd floor wall through the ceiling into my garage over my Z28, but nothing fell. I lost alot more roof shingles down to tarpaper in alot of areas (without tarps), but apparently no more new roof leaks. As my neighbor's house was wrecked from Frances and the county failed to pick-up the debris from Frances, I had to park the 1996 Impala SS and the 2003 Focus in the back yard. I had reinforced the fence with triangulated landscape timbers to each post 3 years ago and it held. Unfortunately, debris made it over the fence and aluminum soffitt scratched both of the cars. My neighbor's pine tree was leaning against their house during the eye and against my fence when the storm was over. Fortunately, that was only a 8ft distance so it did not get a chance to fall. In addition, I had serious concerns that the storm could rip the entire roof off of my 2-story home, as it was originally built to Martin County 110mph ratings. Also the storm had the potential to reach Category 4 levels. The house creaked, but held up. We were very lucky. Overall Martin County to Vero Beach was hammered. In our neighborhood alone 40 of 195 homes had serious roof damage with most of their ceilings falling in. My next door neighbor had her garage door blown in from the North winds. I installed a 140mph garage door in 1999 and it held against the north winds. Entire roof structures were ripped throughout the area. Mobile homes were toast. Anyone near waterways had flooding. A beach road and an causeway was washed away. It is a major mess! Amazingly our power was restored within 18 hours! Our power was out over 7 days with Frances. I took my generator over to my wife's boss house, as their area transformer blew. Stuart had not had a direct hurricane hit since 1932. Now we had 2 within 3 weeks of eachother. Hopefully we are good for another 70 years now. THIS IS IT! NO MORE HURRICANES ARE ALLOWED IN FLORIDA! The SSS only had a minor scar from quickly loading plywood in the bed. I scratched the painted tailgate cap on the inside. The SSS came in very handy pulling the Focus out of soft muck through the fence in the backyard and pulling a 15ft tree back up to vertical. Rick R Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
misterp Posted September 28, 2004 Report Share Posted September 28, 2004 That's a hell of a story. I am happy to hear you are all ok, right where you are I was expecting things to be a whole lot worse. Sorry to hear about the roof, a major bummer with winter coming. I wish there were more I could do to help but give encouragement - if I were independently wealthy I would offer to drive out and help pick up! Good luck to you with your remodeling, and let us know how it goes. Mr. P. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
1stdodge Posted September 28, 2004 Report Share Posted September 28, 2004 THIS IS IT! NO MORE HURRICANES ARE ALLOWED IN FLORIDA! Rick R <{POST_SNAPBACK}> I am very glad to hear everyone is well, I could not agree more, if there is even a Tropical Depression headed our way, I think I may pack up and move! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BenKey Posted September 28, 2004 Report Share Posted September 28, 2004 Rick, Sounds like you faired farely well. Glad to hear it. I guess Francis cleared most of the trees out, so maybe not as many to fall on power lines? I heard over a million residents were without power. Many of the out of state trucks that came here have left, I only assume headed down south. There has been well over 200 power trucks staged on our base. We look like we have our own power company. My high-speed is still not up. But, I feel ashamed to call and complain. Many more with bigger problems than myself out there. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
speedy Posted September 30, 2004 Report Share Posted September 30, 2004 I made it through ok!! The eye passed right over us,it was a category 2 when it got to highlands county.. No damage to the house,but we got minor roof damage to our barn and some more pine trees down..We only lost power for 3 days,It's nice to have power agin!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BenKey Posted September 30, 2004 Report Share Posted September 30, 2004 Glad to hear it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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