Hurricane Francis

[Charlie_VFP]

Hello all,

Just a little OT here to share some pictures and fun information with you. Zak, Heatsink, and I are hunkered down right now awaiting the arrival of the large PIG in the Atlantic Ocean right now. They have been evacuating this whole part of the state for a few days now, but who would want to miss this show! Front row seats to the biggest storm to hit us in quite some time (we only caught a tiny peice of Charley last week....).

Anyway, as long as I have power, I will post pictures and some updates now and then for those of you who like adverse weather. You can keep an eye on the NWS website here: http://www.srh.weather.gov/mlb/ for my town. Melbourne is labeled. That is where I am, Zak is a drop south of it and Heatsink a drop west.

Anyway, here are a few pictures of my house that I boarded up yesterday. One car in the garage, one on the back porch, and the truck on the side. Yeah, I know I need to mow my lawn... :bigsmile:

http://home.cfl.rr.com/radiowave/house1.jpg

http://home.cfl.rr.com/radiowave/house2.jpg

[LaWMaN]

Stay safe Dudes

[Dirty Dawg]

hope you got out of harms way..and are safe...been in a couple of Cyclones (hurricanes) here myself..so I now its not fun..

[Charlie_VFP]

The night was pretty calm. The storm slowed down to about 6 mph so it is creeping along. It dropped to a cat 2 overnight but is strengthening back up in the straights between the bahamas and Florida. The big problem is that it is tracking more north. Now it looks like the eye will come ashore between Melbourne and Vero (right over Daves house) and putting me in the north quad where the winds are the worst. So, looks like it will be a fun few days. Since it is moving slow, that means lots of rain. They are looking at about 20 or so inches of rain. Meaning, nice big floods.

Oh well. It will be interesting. Already people without power. Thankfully not me yet. Hopefully I will not lose power, but I highly doubt it.

Here is a picture of the trees across the street going horizontal during one of the rain bands. We havent seen nothing yet. This is about 35 mph sustained with 50 mph gusts. Was in black and white mode at the time.

PS: Funny watching my dog try to use the bathroom in high winds! :smile:


http://home.cfl.rr.com/radiowave/smallwind.jpg

[Charlie_VFP]

Whew. What fun.

I've been without power at my house since Saturday at 8pm. I lost my cable internet and TV just after posting that last update, and it isnt working yet. Right now I am working from my laptop on a public connection on the other side of town.

Once everything comes back up at the house I will post more photos if there is interest.

Was fun. Tree from down the street ended up in my yard. Most of my fence fell down and parts of it disappeared completely. I didnt sustain much damage to the house but I was lucky. Guy a few houses down lost his entire roof. His roof is in his neighbors pool.

Anyway, not having power sucks..... good thing I am leaving for Atlanta tomorrow and wont be back till Sunday. If power isnt back on by then...... :mad:

[LaWMaN]

Once everything comes back up at the house I will post more photos if there is interest.
That would be great thanks. :smile:

[Charlie_VFP]

The few I have on my laptop so far. Will be getting more when Dave gets power and can send me his. He had it worse than I did.

1. Wind blowing hard. At this point there were gusts into the 80 or so mph range.

http://home.cfl.rr.com/radiowave/windblowing.jpg

2. Section of fence that went down in a gust. I went out to inspect the damage in a small lull in the major stuff. Wind was still blowing pretty good. Snapped off 4 4x4 posts at the ground. The rest of the fence there made it though but it is laying at about a 20 degree angle from vertical.

http://home.cfl.rr.com/radiowave/fence.jpg

3. A tree from down the street came down the street. It was taking out anything in its path. To avoid having it take out a car down the street and also block off the sewage drain, I went out, chopped it up, and drug it up into my yard. If I hadnt, it was have flooded out the street when it blocked up the storm drains. So, nothing like cutting up a tree in the middle of a hurricane!!

http://home.cfl.rr.com/radiowave/tree.jpg
4. Last one for now. Because I hold many volunteer positions in the county (emergency communications coordinator, storm spotter, civvie police, ect.) I get to go out when no one else can and do weather spotting / damage reporting. This was once the hurricane force winds were gone and we were getting another tropical storm level rain band coming through. This is the only one I have on my laptop right now and it is a bit blurry as I was hualing butt down the road. It is a shopping center. The sign is completely destroyed and most of it is missing. There are some huge trees that got uprooted and took out a large amount of parking lot with it. Light poles were down, and all sorts of other stuff.

http://home.cfl.rr.com/radiowave/damage.jpg

Hope you enjoyed.

[Bladehawk]

Im Glad You are OK :thumb:

[Charlie_VFP]

Yay! After 9 days of darkness, power was just restored to my house.

Now I can take 4 days of airing it out and cleaning and I will be able to live in it again!!

:bigsmile:

[JanHas]

Great, but look out for "Crazy" Ivan!! Hé might be heading your way!! :clown:

[LaWMaN]

Yay! After 9 days of darkness, power was just restored to my house.

Now I can take 4 days of airing it out and cleaning and I will be able to live in it again!!

:bigsmile:Good to see you back on line.