Hurricane question? (Jacksonville, Tampa, Cape Coral: house, rent, hotels)

[Floridanative2]

Originally Posted by oceandreams94

WOW! Thanks for the replies! I just wondered what it was really like to ride one out in your home!

Jen

Scary! I stayed in mine for Charlie and Wilma. Before the electric went out, it looked like Charlie was coming up the River, we got into an interior closet with a mattress, pillows, flashlight and water. When the tree fell onto the roof, it sounded like the roof was being peeled back(the branches) It was very scary! never want to do it again!

[Florida Impressions]

A skateboard and a patio umbrella provides quite a bit of entertainment until the wind gets too strong...

[Drouzin]

LOL, we used to do that with the skateboard and a sheet. Tried it once with a shopping cart, but it didn't work. I'll bet the umbrella works much better.

[oceandreams94]

Originally Posted by Florida Impressions

A skateboard and a patio umbrella provides quite a bit of entertainment until the wind gets too strong...

OMG!! I can just imagine! oh boy, dont tell my 4 year old to try that!

Jen

[33458]

Hurricanes...everyone's experience

[stargazer]

When we lived in Seminole Woods we were hit 3 times one summer. Charley was the worst... I can show you pictures if you like, then Frances then Jeanne... Each unique... Charley was strong and the eye actually came through the neighborhood. Charley came in and out very fast... I can remember at the hotel the strongest and center lasted about 30 minutes before it moved on... we only got edges of Frances and Jeanne.. Frances about covered the whole state of Florida, we though did not feel it like Charley but Frances lasted for a couple of days. Jeanne was slow too but the winds weren't bad at all.
Each hurricane is just different.
With Charley, the old neighborhood did not get power for 10 days. We were one of the last areas to get it power... we were lucky though because we found a hotel with lights... it was best to stay in the hotel due to the intense August heat.. I had little kids and they just didn't need to be in the heat.

[homey]

2004 - Charley, we lived about 1 mile south of Charlotte Harbor, when Charley made the cut it was on us in less than an hour, around 3:30 pm, no place to go no time to get out, so rode it out in pantry of house while Charley ripped apart our house, roof suffered some damage and started to peel in the garage, but luckly NO inside water damge, fact our house took it better than most all of the others, even the newer one across the street. Would we do it again Not in my life time, would I ride a skate board and umbrelia, are you nuts? - 13 days with out electric, in 95* + temps and humidty, you go out side everyday and look and don't know where to start. Lucky we had hot tub on lanai, once it was cleared off we used it to flush comode, also to just get in and wash away the sweat, stink and dirt, one night after doing so we sat naked on lawn chairs in the still warm evening with a slight breeze and total darkness still trying to get over the shock of it all. What happened after Charley, Ivan, Frances (3 days) Jeane Wilma just made living in Paradise all the harder, I do comment the local Ft Myers Fox 4 News as we watched it on portable 5" TV so we knew what was going on till they open up the phone lines and some idiot down that way calls in and wants to know when they are going to get his electric on and we got a Cat 4 hurricane distroying everything up here - the other thing was that Relief came quick, I went every day to get ice and water maybe some food or a hot meal, NEVER takeing anything more than what we could use, but the greed I saw was totally amazeing.

But it's all over now, and place was rebuilt (better) my insurance Co. was good about it, had very little problems compaired to most, house was sold mid 2006, moved just inside state line in Alabama, do we want to come back, You bet, But where?

[stargazer]

Homey tons of hugs coming your direction! We were building our pool when Charley came, it wasn't done and if we had it built we would have been home and just swam and stayed cool that way under the little waterfall we had... there was no running water for 10 days and lights too.. the day the lights came on is the day the water did too.. we took the last room at a hotel over in Orlando next to UCF. We though went every day to the house to check on our pets and to check on our neighbors. We invited the neighbors to come to the hotel but none would... Seminole Woods is a neighborhood off of 426 and 46 out in the forest... the lots are 5 acres all loaded with pine trees or were... we lost all our pines and were lucky that not a one hit the house. The forest was our back yard... our cottage was nestled in the middle of woods. It looked like a house out of story book ... so anyways it was dangerous to be out there.. people were going out on their golf carts running over electric lines. The trees had taken the lines down, making them all go hap hazard everywhere. .. People had 100 foot sand pines not yet fallen all the way down over drives and people were driving under them... We were lucky and know it was a God thing... when the insurance man came out, he was from out of state.. he had this look of disbelief... he couldn't believe we lived there with trees just fallen everywhere and the house intact, it was dangerous and I could not let my kids go o out side for fear that a tree that was snapped at the top could come down on my kids. We had gotten some rain in with a roof tile being ripped off so there was water damage... I could tell he wanted to tell me he was sorry, there was just something about that but he couldn't. He was choked up... In the end, we had to spend 35K to clean up the mess that insurance could not pay for and were in debt to this day due to it... Fema did a wonderful job in helping clean up our neighorhood. They spent over 2 million in clean up along the roads and many of my neighbors all they could do is curse at them... these were out of state workers who came in and pitched tents at night in our park..... It got so bad that the president of the neighborhood association wrote a letter about how bad the neighbors were to people there to help us in our quarterly newsletter. Anyways I unlike you just can't go back... I have too many bad memories and the hurricanes were the icing for us... we had many wonderful times there and met many nice people, the bad just outweighs the good... my husband even told me he was afraid he was turning into a mean person because we were there... he said he needed to go back home to be the person he was... it is all true and truth is, he is his same old self since we came back....

[homey]

Stargazer - We all suffered in some degree, then most suffered at the hands of people out to take advantage of us in our time of need. The Insurance guy that came out was from Texas, and when he got all done we went over his figures, we will take the roof for instance, the price he gave me, I said ok and handed it back to him and looked him square in the eye and said "Now I suppose you are going to give me a list of contractors that will do the job for this amount" He said he could not and I said sure I know that because no one is going to do it for that, these adjusters came to town with figures and cost that were no where near up to what market was at that time. Long story short the only thing that was done right was the roof, because a friend of mine worked for a roofing Co. out of county and the work we did ourselves. As you and everyone else know after Charley the cost of all Building Materials just hit the roof, in some things prices were changeing by the Hour.

But we have that all behind us now, a lot of people sold out and made big sums of money
we put ours on the market and hoped it would sell, was on the market four months and we got an offer just two days after that in which we could live with. So we moved up here and pay no property taxes and no flood insurance and home owners in less than half of what it was with the old house, but we are NOT at all happy here, so we want to move back to FL, but do not know where or how we are going to do it (our problem).

Hurricanes are a part of living in Paradise, so it is an excepted value, we adapted to the weather, and the summer storms, BUT I always took heart to Hurricanes, all I ever heard was we will NEVER get hit by one, to me it was not a case of NEVER it was a case of WHEN, and Charley was a pure case of "When". We have the DVD that was shot by Storm Chasers, shot just a mile from our house, one guy said "I thought I was going to die" after seeing the film, we were all spared.

I am glad you are happy where you are now, we are not and we do not belong here, so some how I need to find a way to get us back to paradise, oh we are but 5 to 6 mile from the FL line, but not where we want to be, but we will make due till our time comes. Thank you for your reply and have a great New Year

[daveyjones]

All in all...buy a generator of at lease 2,500 watts.