Courtesy of Hunters Point
It’ll be awhile before the power is back. They’re working on it. It’s kind of miserable with no air conditioning, but at least the weather hasn’t been too bad — in the 70s and 80s with a slight breeze.
The car I parked in Bradenton, on higher ground, worked out well. My brother-in-law drove me out the next day to pick it up. We didn’t get any storm surge though, none at all.
They were calling for a 10-foot storm surge. That definitely would have been higher than Helene, but nothing came. It never even came over the bulkhead.
We cleaned out the garage on our ground level. Now I’m reorganizing it, but that was never a problem.
My wife was a little nervous, but she always gets that way about these storms. The house never shook. The windows didn’t rattle. It’s kind of exciting to me to see what Mother Nature can do. You stay concerned, you can’t be overconfident. There is that little bit of uncertainty.
But that’s why I like to stay. If something happens, I’m able to take care of it. One thing that happened was our sliding doors in the back started sliding open. I think the wind shook them. I came downstairs, got a piece of wood, cut it to the right length, and stuck it in there. If I hadn’t been here, maybe the wind would’ve blown the doors right off and messed up our living room.
The area around us, though, is devastating. Right across the street there’s a little trailer park on land lower than we are. Two-thirds of those roofs are gone. We drove through Bradenton yesterday and there was no power for the whole 10 miles. No stop lights are working, and there are power lines all over the road.
It all comes down to a personal choice. I’d rather be here and know what’s going on with my house than somewhere far away.