In the beginning week of September my family and I prepared ourself for Hurricane Irma (a category 4 storm that was going to hit SWFL). The Hurricane had already wrecked havoc in the Caribbean & we were super nervous not knowing what to expect. We decided to stay and not leave our home but prepping the week before was insane. This was our 1st Hurricane ever and I honestly didn’t know what to expect or what to even shop for aside from WATER. It was not easy, water was SOLD OUT EVERYWHERE….but I have a family to take care of and I basically stalked every store until I found some. I spent 3 days in the car driving around in circles, with my phone glued to my hand reading my towns FB account in hopes that someone would say “there’s water in Winn Dixie!!” or “there’s water in Walmart!!”. After finding some cases and over stocking (but following supermarket limit rules of course), I tried my best to help others that weren’t so lucky in finding some. I didn’t bother getting meat because I figured if the power went out for days then they would go bad..I opted for canned goods like spaghetti and junk food, you know foods that you can eat cold. I found no flashlights, but I did get 3 big praying candles and some decor candles (made about 6) (that’s all I could find)
Supermarkets were empty!! Gas lines were super long (wait time was like 2 hours, and thats if you were lucky) On September 10th 2017 (the day Irma was supposed to arrive) I woke up super early and made breakfast. After we ate I immedietly started on lunch, after lunch I took small break to clean (As if Irma was going to come over my house for dinner or something lol) Once I started on prepping for dinner at 2:30pm we lost power…and then well, it all went down hill after that. I won’t sit here and explain little by little what went down because I mean we all know what went down. Lots of rain, winds, things flying around , trees falling etc.. For the most part, where I was at it didn’t look that bad, but then again there aren’t many trees around me. We did get some flooding in kitchen. The wind noise against the shutters was enough to keep you on edge. We sat in complete darkness aside from the 3 candles I had and the tiny decor candles and it was still sort of pitch black.. Jaiden & I ate our leftovers over lunch and my husband at a cold can of spaghettis. Once we were in bed asleep and we thought the hurricane was dying down, I woke up to hear the winds picking up rather fast and loud, I knew it must of been a tornado. I forced myself back to sleep, I just wanted it to be over!
Once we woke up it was over…the day looked just like any other sunny day in Florida really except it felt eerie in a way. It felt just as eerie as when the storm was coming in. We decided to get in the car and look around town. And that’s when we saw it…that’s when we saw all the damage that Hurricane Irma caused to our town, and sure enough we were hit with a few tornados as well.. A huge tree that was behind our home fell (the one that I posted with Jai & MJ), my neighbors storage door basically flew off, some roads you couldn’t even get past because trees fell and blocked the road, homes were flooded, trucks flipped over, roofless homes, tree branches everywhere…and this was just in my little town..
(I did not edit these pictures at all, that is why they are not as bright as my normal photos)
These photos do nothing for what we really saw in person, and other parts of Florida were severely damaged far more worst. Thankfully we got our power back quickly but some of my friends didn’t have power for almost 10 days and till this day there are some people in Florida that still don’t have power. A lot of people think that once the Hurricane is over that your life is back to normal in a snap and that is not the case at all! Although I had power I was still running out of food to feed my family, supermarkets were closed and even when they did open there was no meat or dairy to sell. The supermarkets looked just as empty as they were before the hurricane hit. There was still no gas and even when there was gas the lines were ridiculous and eventually they would run out. Now almost 2 weeks after the storm my life is slowly getting back to normal…After almost 2 weeks outta school, Jaiden is finally back and my husband is back to his normal work routine as well.
I am beyond thankful that my family & I survived this hurricane, and that we are fine and well. But now we have a bigger worry and that’s HURRICANE MARIA that has destroyed our second home, Puerto Rico. More on that in another post. If you’re in Florida how’d you make out after Irma? As always thanks for reading!
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