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I am here. Both me and The Boss Lady -- and Bianca -- are alive and kicking. The house has sustained mild to moderate damage, but it could have been a lot worse if storm surge had come in. Out on the lanai we've lost about 30 screens in the pool cage. But will take quite a while since screen is hard to come by right now. Mild roof leak over office caused some damage to ceiling and wall. But the real corker is one of the big royal palm trees came down and dealt a glancing blow to my garage roof. I managed to climb up and sawz-all off most of the top, but the trunk itself is going to be there for awhile; trying to roll or pull it off will cause more damage to the roof and destroy the concrete driveway below when it falls. Have to wait until we can find some guy with a hydraulic arm or maybe a forklift to lift that side off the house and set it on the driveway for dismemberment. In the meantime, have backed one car out -- very hinky driving under a 5,000lb tree hanging over youe head like one of Wile E Coyote's fucking AMCE contraptions -- but TBL's car is trapped for the time being.
Fortunately, I had the foresight to turn off the water, power, and propane before we evacuated to neighbor's house, and when I turn the propane back on everything in the house works fine -- stove, fireplace, etc -- but there's a mild propane smell emanating from the tank in the yard. I suspect when the tree toppled, the roots pulled on a propane supply line and caused a leak in one of the valves or whatnot. For now the propane is turned back off until Balgas can get out here and inspect. Probably a few hundred bucks to get that taken care of. In the meantime, we cook on an electric griddle and the charcoal grill just to be safe.
But we're alive and well and not under 10-15 feet of water, which is what the initial storm surge projections were the morning of, so that's something. Had Irma not made her last minute turn eastward and heading inland around Naples, things would have turned out very differently. I'm guessing it will be around $1500-$1800 to have the pool cage rescreened, about $1000 for the leak over the office, about $500 to have the tree taken down and disposed of, and shiiiiitt maybe $2000-$2500 for the roof/gutter damage caused by the tree, and eh, maybe $300 or so to have the propane leak fixed? ? So I'm ballparking around $5000-$5500 in damage. And what's my homeowners's insurance hurricane damage deductible? $6500; meaning every bit of this is all going to come out of pocket. C'est la vie.
I haven't been able to venture out much to check the damage in surrounding areas. There is no gasoline to be had, debris in the road -- I DON'T HAVE BIG RED ANYMORE GODAMMIT -- I am in one of the few neighborhoods with power, and many neighboring areas are dealing with localized flooding. No internet. Doing this update via mobile hotspot from my phone; Verizon is waiving all data charges for the next week. Some of the links below may be a little dated, as they're the very last of what I had stored before my four day hiatus for Irma. Will post more when I can.
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