Home Safe and Sound
- Community
- Annuitants & Former ExPats
Author: Daren Lamb
Released 8 October 2004
We are back in our house after being hit with the second hurricane within
three weeks and one hour. The landfall hit within five miles of the first.
Jeanne was our Jonah. Frances was first.
We've had a direct hit from a category two and a category three. Thank you,
but we'll not hold our breath for a category four. We had sustained winds for
three consecutive hours clocked at 125-130 mph. We were not here, of course.
We're smarter than that. Luckily, our old house was a fortress with our
hurricane accordion shutters.
What Frances didn't get, Jeanne did. The house and everything are still
intact, but Jeanne brought water damage. I have often said that other than my
Yahama piano and a few good pieces of furniture from Copenhagen, we don't have a
thousand dollars worth of furniture in the whole house....except for carpets.
Although most were purchased at auctions here at great prices, they are worth a
fortune. I know everyone tells their adjustors that they have a freezer full of
lobster and a house full of Persian carpets, but believe it or not we had both.
The lobster was local, but it was just after lobster season in Florida, and
people had been very generous. Of course, it is long gone now. If you have never
had to clean out a freezer/ fridge full of putrefied seafood after ten days with
no power, you are missing the thrill of a lifetime. The second refrigerator on
our long-gone patio has not been opened yet. Neither of us has guts enough to
open the door. We're going to tape it together and haul it out to the curb.
Our floors were covered with Irani carpets. Water got into the house
somehow....we are not certain how, but all the carpets and my one woolen Tsing
Tsing made by monks in China, were soaked. The smell is horrific. I can get them
cleaned, but I must first sign up on a long list for repair and restoration
services. Our oldest son, Gar, needed someone to do some roofing work and
was told that he was number 701 on the list. The carpets have been spread
outside over everything dry we could find, and brought in again this evening
only to go out again tomorrow morning. They are very heavy and filled with
water.
The landscaping is gone. Our coconut trees need replanting, the limes from
both our trees must be somewhere in Okeechobee, probably the lake by now, but
all in all the house is fine and we are fine. We are the only people in the
neighborhood with electricity this evening. There are four of us on the grid,
and for some reason no one else has power. We have electric, air conditioning, a
dehumidifier, and fans. We can't drink the water though.
We have been away a month. It seems like eons. The birds are happy to be in
their big cages, and the dog is back in gear getting fed defrosted steak by the
neighbors who are all cooking it up and making use of it before it goes
bad. It's better food than he gets at home. We all had a big dinner this
evening, in the dark, and achieved some semblance of normalcy for the first time
since this all began on September 4th. We are content to be in our own bed
tonight, be it ever so humble.
We have never experienced such storms. In twenty-seven years we've had
a couple of small storms pass by us, but nothing like this. There are people in
our little part of the beach whose homes have been condemned, and many who
cannot get back into their places until repairs to roofs are accomplished. There
isn't a fence nor a pool enclosure nor a patio cover anywhere. Huge air
conditioners were blown off high-dollar condos and have never been found.
They probably did a loop back into the ocean. There is so much damage.
Perhaps I should write a book about it. But then one has already been written;
Graham Greene's Condominium. Written some thirty years ago, I think.