Hurricane
The terrible devastation wrought by the recent hurricanes brought to mind an Ernest Hemingway book I read as a kid entitled “Old Man and the Sea” about the experiences of an old fisherman in the straits of Florida between the Keys and Cuba. Hemingway's vivid description of the fisherman dealing with high winds and rough sea came flooding back as I watched news about the hurricanes. While researching Hemingway on-line, I discovered another book about the author/adventurer entitled “The Great Florida Keys Storm of 1935” that I hope to read. That hurricane was a category 5 with 200 mph winds!
Speaking of Hemingway, he had a connection to Hurricane Irma as well in that his home, now a museum in Key West survived without much damage, thanks to being build with three layers of cement blocks to withstand hurricane winds. Hemingway bought it in 1931, so it survived that 200 mph 1935 hurricane as well. While living there, Hemingway was given a six toed cat by a ship captain, and today there are 54 such polydactyl cats, all decedents of that original cat, named Snow White. Each, like the one pictured below, are named after a famous person (or cartoon character), continuing Hemingway’s practice. All 54 cats survived the hurricane.
Another interesting tidbit about the hurricane recovery was this video of a chainsaw-wielding nun clearing a fallen tree.
This year’s hurricanes were especially disconcerting since we now have a condo in Naples (circled in the aerial photo below) where Irma hit head-on. Nancy, our condo association president and registered nurse, along with her dog Charlie, hunkered down in their condo near our unit on the 4th floor to ride out the hurricane. She was texting me periodic reports about the storm that I then copied into an email and sent to the other residents who had evacuated or were up north for the summer like us. That way she conserved battery power on her phone while everyone stayed updated on the hurricane. A local TV news station had positioned a sky-cam on the building next door to ours, so we were able to remotely observe the conditions real time via the internet. It was especially eerie to watch the strong easterly winds literally blow the water in the bay out to sea causing a never-before-seen 4-5’ drop in water levels.
Just as the winds were peaking, the power went out disrupting the sky-cam video, but cellular service was still ok, allowing Nancy to keep us up to speed (literally) about the hurricane. But once 135 mph wind surges were measured at the Naples airport, the cell system also went down. So for a couple hours, all we could do was watch the Weather Channel reporting live less than a mile from our condo. Click here for an amazing video of his report during the worst of the hurricane.
As the eye of the hurricane passed directly over Naples, the wind died and for a few seconds, the sun even shown through the eye; and amazingly cell service returned, allowing Nancy to transmit again. She reported there was no power or water. She also indicated that as the hurricane winds shifted, the water that had been blown out to sea came surging back into the bay, rising to 5’ over high tide, which meant the water level encroached to within one foot of our condo building before receding back to normal levels. Fortunately, the forecasted surge of 15’ did not materialize, which would have flooded the building up to the second level! The photo on the right was taken from outside her condo the next morning. You’ll notice several trees are down and if you click the photo and look closely, notice the flagpole with Old Glory still waving at the end of the parking lot. As of this writing, power and water are still out, but we’re thankful for Nancy (and Charlie’s) safety as well as the relatively good condition of our building, which means we should be able to again enjoy another stay this winter.
The local Naples newspaper depicted many areas that unfortunately suffered much more serious damage. The following two photos especially caught my attention as a ’59 Chevy the same color and model as my first car (documented in this previous blog) got smashed by a palm tree. Who in the world would leave a classic car out during a hurricane?
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