Frances to Orlando?

Not Again! The five day forecast currently has Hurricane Frances hitting Stuart at 2PM on Saturday, and if you keep drawing a straight line it hits Orange County. Then again, these same charts had Charley hitting St. Pete Beach...

National Hurricane Center / Tropical Prediction Center

Utilities erred before Charley

Tree damage, need for workers underestimated
The Sentinel actually writes a pretty good overview of the power company troubles with Charley unexpectedly showing up in Orlando.

OrlandoSentinel.com:

SW FL Cruising Info

The Salty Southeast ...A Free Newsletter for All Cruisers Plying the Water of the Southeastern USA The Salty Southeast ................................A Free Newsletter for All Cruisers Plying the Water of the Southeastern USA

I just found a graphic illustration of John Kerry's last week. 

Pelican leaves its slip

August 22, 2004. Our maiden trip from the slip with a crew of 11 people and 1 dog. We took the Larson family and friends along with Mom & Dad out for a three hour trip out into the gulf. The boat had plenty of space. 

This is a tree at Palm Lake Elementary.  

Our estimate is that a couple of hundred trees either fell over or broke in two in our neighborhood. The first wave that preceeded the storm brought a tornado through the neighborhood at about 6:30 PM Friday.  

Everyone lost at least the tops of their trees to the wind. Winds were sustained at about 90 MPH, with gusts up to 105. Fortunately, it only lasted for a couple of hours. 

The day after. Lots of leaves and branches down on our street. Fortunately little damage. But power was not restored for a full four days here. 

Power Up!

After four nights and four days our electricity has been restored to us. It's amazing the things we take for granted in our daily lives until suddenly they are not available. It's a wonderful feeling to be able to flip a switch again and have the light magically come on.

Power Update

Storm Central - Progress Energy: "Updated at 4:30 p.m, Aug. 16

Progress Energy Florida crews continue to restore power to customers across Florida. The company has restored power to 204,901, or about 40 percent, of the customers who lost power when Hurricane Charley battered Florida on Friday. As of 4 p.m. Monday, 297,099 Progress Energy Florida customers remained without power, down from a peak of 502,000 at midnight Friday."

They will not complete Orange County until midnight Saturday.

Orange County Public Schools to remain closed until August 24

Orange County Public Schools: "Orange County public schools to remain closed until August 24
Out of a concern for student health and safety, Superintendent Ronald Blocker announced today that all Orange County public schools will remain closed through Monday, August 23, for students. All students will report back to school on Tuesday, August 24. Make-up days will be announced by the district by September 30, 2004."

Florida Progress Energy Status

According to their website, Florida Progress had 502,000 customers lose power due to the storm.

By 11:00 AM Sunday morning they had restored power to 45,000, leaving about 460,000 customers without power in the affected areas. In addition, Orlando Utilities Commission had 100,000 customers without power.

By 5:00 AM Monday morning, Florida Progress was reporting that 141,000 customers had power restored, and 360,000 were still without power.

Unfortunately, we are still among the majority without.

Hurricane Report

Charley came through our neighborhood last Friday night. Our street suffered minimal damage. Our neighbors across the street lost their back fence, but it looked pretty old. Their next door neighbor had the worst luck, a tree fell onto the screen cage around their pool and destroyed it.

Our neighborhod has lost a couple of hundred trees. Unbelievably, only a few fell onto houses. About every third house has some lost shingles. Everyone has branches down, including ourselves.

We have not had power since 8:00 Friday, and probably won't get power back until around next Saturday. Today, however, the phones are back up and we have internet access.

Most streetlights are either working by now, or at least flashing. Gasoline is hard to come by, as we had close to 800,000 evacuees from Hillsborough and Pinellas come here to avoid the projected path of the storm. Everyone filled up their tanks here before driving home, leaving us empty.

Everyone here is fine. Just a bit cranky. Cold showers, hot, muggy house. Waking at dawn, bedtime after dusk. It's similar to a weekend on the boat, but without the nice views.

We'll post pictures later.