Your experience with hurricanes in FL, what kind of damage and where in FL did this happen? (rain, hot)

[JunoAqua]

Wondering what Florida residents have incurred with hurricanes, as far as damage. loss time from work, going to shelters, problems from vandals after your home was damaged? What about traffic for evacuation routes, is this logged jammed for hours? Do you go to shelters or ride it out in your house?

Wonder what expereinces Floridians go through when this happens?

[macguy]

Originally Posted by JunoAqua

Wondering what Florida residents have incurred with hurricanes, as far as damage. loss time from work, going to shelters, problems from vandals after your home was damaged? What about traffic for evacuation routes, is this logged jammed for hours? Do you go to shelters or ride it out in your house?

Wonder what expereinces Floridians go through when this happens?

Fort Lauderdale for 55 years, None, ever just, a few trees and a wood fence that I just stood back up.

[belladee]

Hurricanes are MAJOR damage for many. Every Hurricane I loose my electricity anywhere from a few days to over a month.

If you live by the water you have to stay in a shelter. you drive to the shelter and sleep there. not fun especially if you have kids or pets.

If you live inland you spend a day or 2 boarding up your house and helping everyone else. usually there are not many homes with major damage. Trees, fences and always roof work. (Hurricane Andrew not included).

The worst for us was H. Wilma. We lost our fence a lot of trees and did not have electricty for 1 month. Unless you had gas reserves, which we always do, you lost a lot of work. It was Hard to get gas and get to work. My friends had to go to work for weeks with no shower and every few days had to wait for 1hr to get gas to get to work.

We never had problems with vandalism.

If you live in Fla you NEED a generator and a few gallon gas tanks.

[nomoresnow]

Where are you located, belladee?

[jim09091]

Boca Raton, FL (home constructed in the 70's):

* Andrew - 1992 - Most damage was to vegetation, some minor shingle, fence, etc damage.

Bonita Beach, FL (home constructed in 2002 - on a barrier island):

* Charley - 2004 - Screen Enclosure bent and ripped apart but was repairable. A few roof tiles were removed, minor wind-driven rain seepage, a lot of tree and shrub damage, power was out for over a week.

* Wilma - 2005 - Screen enclosure totally ripped apart and torn down. Roof tile damage, water seepage and leaking, heavy tree and shrub damage, other assorted damage on the house and property, power was out for about 3-4 days I believe.

[sunrico90]

We experienced a few, worst hurricane: Andrew I was stationed at Homestead AFB, the base was severly damaged.

Since 1998 we live in Navarre and we had two: Dennis & Ivan

Damages during Ivan none
Damages during Dennis: broken gate to the back patio

Hurricane Dennis hit Navarre Beach and did damage to the beach houses but most of the homes in-land homes did not had any damages.

See site for historical info on Fl hurricans:http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/hurdat/ushurrlist.htm

[doggiebus]

The worst storm that I have been through was Hurricane Andrew in 1992 a Cat 5. I was a teenager at the time, so I didn't have to go to to work. My fathers company was great and gave him a few weeks off I remember.

We stayed for the storm as it was forecast to hit further north (thinking we wouldn't get the brunt of the storm), but the storm changed direction literally last minute and hit Homestead, the eye came over the house. So I can not tell you about the evacuation traffic. But now if a cat 4 or 5 comes again, I will be leaving.

Andrew was a small size storm but very powerful one. Half of the storm hit an unpopulated area in the everglades. The other half hit South Miami-Dade County, so people in half of Miami-Dade North did not feel Andrew. Most if not all of Broward and Palm Beach got tropical force winds only.

Vandals, well yah that was an issue in some neighborhoods. We didn't seem to have that problem, but I do remember many homes with "You loot we shot" spray painted on their homes. But the stores yah they got hit.

Damage to the house: The storm truely sounded like a freight train right next to the house. We did very good considering the eye of the storm came over our house. So here is what damage we had. Our neighbors had a seperate car garage in the rear of their house, the eves from their garage roof were ripped off and smashed into our shuttered french doors and shuttered kitchen window which blew in the second half of the storm. So the kitchen was detroyed, from the wind. The shed was no were to be found, the screened in patio was in the pool. The pool slide was in the yard. After the storm, it rained for a little while, thats when the water started leaking in from fixtures on the ceiling like lights and fans, which ruined the rugs.(So they tiled everwhere except the bedrooms today). No power for 4 months, no phone for 5 months. The roof stayed intack and only lost a some shingles (my parents over built the house with hurricane staps). But I remember many homes that were in developments that were very damaged. One community called Country Walk was built of stick and those homes didn't just have damage compared to the CBS homes, they were a lot worse. (So if you can nuy a CBS home over a stick home do it) We had a gas stove and gas water heater, so we were able to cook normaly and take hot showers, but people with everything electric in their house, they had a rougher time, showering in the canals and lots of BBQ. We went back to school, with light but no out A/C in the classrooms. That is my experience.

[firemed]

Hurricane Andrew in 1992 a Cat 5 was the first time I seen what a storm can do.

[firemed]

[firemed]

Charlie 2004