Hurricane Ian Update

The "calm" after the storm...

Although you can't see it in this picture, those trees are still moving back and forth in gusts of wind as they pass through, but thankfully for all practical purposes, Hurricane Ian is pretty much over and done here in our area.  We are very very thankful for all the prayers and well wishes that helped to see us through a long rainy, windy night.  We never lost power until this morning around  9:00, when a tree blew down on the power lines down the road a little way from our neighborhood. Power was knocked out for a very large section of our community, including our son's house.  He's still "batching" it while his sweet wife is visiting her family in Minnesota...so when we found out that our local Nanna's Country Cafe' still had power and they were open for business, we decided to meet there for "brunch"...(Benton and I had breakfast, hubby had lunch).  

Afterwards we drove past our church and discovered that a large tree had fallen on our ancient log cabin structure on the property.  That building is now used primarily for storage of lawn equipment and other maintenance items, but it once was a Boy Scout Hut, and then our Thrift Shop was started there many years ago.  The building is over 100 years old, and is built from palm tree logs, which are very very sturdy.  It is a landmark in our community.

But this also very old oak tree was rotten to the core apparently, and it could no longer withstand the winds of a very strong hurricane, and so it fell and landed on the roof of the log building:

Apparently the roof is caved in. We've been discussing in our church board meetings that something needed to be done with this old building because it is getting beyond repair, etc., and I guess God decided to take matters into His own hands.  It will be sad to see the old building go, but we've been realizing that we actually need the space for parking because our little church is growing...so we shall see how it goes. We are very thankful it was this building and not our church buildings....

The other item of interest today has been the temperature!  60 degrees is pretty nice for a change, even if it did take a hurricane to bring it down to that level...

We later took another ride (ostensibly to charge my cell phone since we still had no power), and discovered the power trucks down the road from us, repairing the lines that had been broken.

What a wonderful sight to see!!!

These fellas were busy cutting up the downed tree and directing traffic, etc...

We are very thankful for the linemen, who put their own lives on the line literally to take care of these dangerous missions so that we can have electricity restored once again. There have been many linemen traveling here from all over the country to help out with the massive cleanup that will be required throughout the whole state. Over 3 million people have been without power...and many will have to wait several days or even weeks before it can be fully restored because of all the damage from this storm.

Our thoughts and prayers are with so many who didn't fare as well as we did. Many are flooded out of their homes or have other serious damages that may never be fully repaired. This was a brutal storm. I haven't heard the total death toll, but even one person is too many.

And finally, around 4:00 this afternoon, our power came back on! Hallelujah!

This is the worst damage that we sustained in our yard...our son's "carport" over his Camaro didn't quite survive the wind...and that special cover on the car itself had to be weighted back down several times. The winds were quite vicious, and we are only on the outer fringes of the storm.  You can only imagine how terrible it was for those in the main eye of the hurricane.  Yes, we are very very thankful.

And so with that I will close down for now. Tomorrow is a new day. We plan to open Dixie Cottage back up for those who just might want to do some shopping. Thankfully the store never lost power and there didn't appear to be any damages there either. We are so very very blessed.

I am trying to add a couple of other pictures, but I keep getting a message the blogger.com server can't be found. So now I don't know if this will publish or not. I will go ahead and try to publish as is, and that will explain why it may seem "unfinished."  Is anyone else having such issues?

God bless you all, and thank you again for your prayers over the past few days.

You are the best!!