We lost our cable and internet before I could publish this post, and it has not returned to us until today – five days later. I’m not complaining as many people experienced far worse during the storm than we did. 

Sunday, September 10, 2017, around 8 pm

Irma made landfall this afternoon around 3:30 near Naples, Florida. It is now about an hour and a half south of us in Ft. Myers.  Since landfall it has weakened to Category 2 with 110 mph sustained winds and we are getting gusts between 50 and 60 miles per hour. It’s path may go east of us, possibly to Arcadia. They were hit by Hurricane Charlie too and I will feel bad if they get it again. The only positive thing would be that they have already lost most of their big trees and shaky buildings. Hopefully we will keep most of ours. However, our worst time with this powerful storm is still ahead.

We were able to cook spaghetti for supper and made a salad. We still have electricity, although over 180,000 in the county are without it. We are  making use of the time together with lots of conversation and bonding through our shared experience. There is ice cream in our near future if all goes according to plan.

An odd thing is happening that I don’t remember having heard of before. People are reporting that the ocean and the rivers go away, leaving boats high and dry and the bottom exposed for as far as can be seen. In some places it returns slowly, in others I’ve heard that the storm surge rose 7 feet in 90 minutes. That is extreme.

At 3 pm a curfew was instated and since the winds are over 45 mph there are no services – law enforcement or medical. Yesterday one of our major hospitals was evacuated. It seems that someone thought that next to the riverfront would be a good place to put a hospital. What were they thinking?

The shelters are full. There are tornado warnings.

We are getting ready to go to our safe rooms as the hurricane is traveling faster now.  Trees are being uprooted, reportedly, in Sarasota.  Will stop now and get everyone together.  I don’t expect to sleep tonight.