And so it begins...

Just had the first couple rain bands pass through here...added about half an inch of water to the pool in 20 minutes.

Will probably pull the systems down and unplug before the power goes out and forces the UPS to kick in.

Be safe everyone |hurricane

i think i'm missing most of it i'm in lakeland FL they do have tornados east and west of us right now i think they said like 20 mins away

This isn't good,
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/loc...home-headlines
"Broward County will likely take the hardest hit from a hurricane than at any time in more than 40 years when Wilma moves through the area over the next 24 hours, emergency management officials warned Sunday evening.

The core of Wilma is expected to move through Broward around dawn with sustained winds of 80 mph and gusts of up 100 mph. Conditions also will be ripe for strong tornadoes to form and bring more damage."

I've got one friend that is going to ride out this thing in a prefab home (mobile home without wheels) and another that lives in the second floor apartment with no shutters and the apartment is all huge windows. They are showing crazy people down in the Keys that are going to ride it out on their docked boats.

I may be bored but at least I'm in a concrete block home with full shutters.

This may be a tough one because the storm is coming from the other direction, which might put you all on a different wind pattern and all. Hopefully the storm will pick up speed and pass over Florida quickly, rather than dwelling like it did in Cancun (maybe it needed a vacation?).

At least Alpha isn't headed anywhere near you.

Alex

Alex (and CLeo) - the biggest problem with it moving so fast over Fla is that it wont have time to lose strength as they normally do - theyre saying now that its gonna be going around 30 mph across - so it could very well just weaken to a Cat 2 (yeah it will be a Cat 3 in a few hours) with easily around 100 mph sustained winds and 130 mph gusts on the east coast as it leaves Broward - also remember that the speed of its movement adds effects to how fast the winds are really felt - so while the winds will be measured in one spot at 110 mph - the effects of it with a forward speed of 30 mph will make it do damage at the level of 140 mph winds or so

The only good thing is all the trees on the west side of my property have already fallen, and gone through my roof, in the previous storms. At least if any more fall they should fall away from my house. Not real good for my next door neighbor but good for me. The real big ficus in my backyard would actually fall on the power lines that run through my backyard which would take out the service to my house and my entire block so at least FPL would probably be fairly fast at fixing things.

Also there is a cold front moving in on Tuesday so only having a one room A/C shouldn't be a problem at all.

I feel like I'm coming down with something but maybe it's just the stress of all of this. I'm so over these storms. :(

News says a tornado hit 10 miles north of us 30 mins ago.... Not even windy here, we had some lightning and rain, but nothing big yet.

Thinking of ordering a pizza…

Be safe everyone and batten down the hatches.

It looks really close to Florida now.

Yea, after my last post...things settled down again...just a very light breeze. In the last hour or so, rain bands are coming through again...still not much wind though.

Looks like landfall is going to be a ways south of us, so we'll most likely only get tropical storm force winds. But, I've got this place locked down for whatever Wilma has to throw at us.

Definitely doesn't look like she's gonna hang out like she did in Mexico. A wham bam thank you mam kinda gal here in Florida...what a slut :D

only about a 2 miles from me... in fact I drove past the place on my way home from a meeting earlier today. Here's hoping that is the worst we have to deal with out of this storm.
Stay safe everyone.. I've got my laptop battery charged and my dial up numbers on hand just in case power goes out (part of my hurricane plan :) )

It almost looks like it's going to pair up with Wilma east of Florida and run up along the coast.

Alrighty...time to shut this thing down and get some sleep. Looks like I'll be waking up to some wind and rain in a few hours :D

Take good care Floridians...be safe :)

A&W still makes the best root beer

I see Wilma passed through the keys and is coming onto the mainland...stay safe folks |thumb

Storm woke me up. Sounds like a fright train is driving past me house.

Power is going on and off, probably going to have to go on generator power soon. Actually as I'm typing this the power seems to have gone off for good.

Eye will be passing over me in a bit. Guess I should go get the generator started.

They are predicting the Atlantic side will have the biggest storm surge. Keep your waders handy.

Ya'll hold on down there.
Does anyone know if Simon evacuated the rock he lives on?

No he didn't :(

I watched the Sheriff interviewed on Fox News and he said they only had 10% evacuate of the 78,000 residents of key west |shocking|

That was exciting, had to make to make to the electric main which is located in my backyard about as far from my garage as it could be to disconnect from the grid before starting the generator. Note to self, next time top off the generator's fuel tank before the storm hits, was only a quarter full.

I had to hold on to things to keep from getting blown over. Opening the wooden gate to my backyard was interesting. :D

I think Simon was going to ride out the storm at his home. I hope he makes it through ok.

Wow this thing is loud. So much for going back to sleep. I feel like I drink ten cups of espresso.

Power out for the second time here, winds have really picked up in the last 30 min. Other than that all is well here. Hell I'm ready to go back to bed lol.
Stay safe everyone.

its windy out. And I don't have a kite.

ooh, sig placement

Stay safe everyone.

|buddy|

Still alive.

That only works when you have a sig... :)

Cleo, according to what is on foxnews, it looks like it about is right over your head.

Stay low! :)

Alex

The water in my toilets is bobbing up and down, WTF.

Looks like the eye should be over me soon. Going to take a look at the damage and take some pics then.

Just took a fast look outside. It is still very windy so I stayed away from any large trees fearing one of them falling on me.

Lost a small part of my fence on the other side this time. A few large branches broke off of the ficus tree in my backyard taking down the power lines that run along my property line. It looks like a war zone out there. Going to take some pics once it is safe to go out.

Careful, you should still have some coming on the backside...

Not bad where we are at, but a tornado hit across town in the complex where my boss & my other manager lives. :( They are okay, just no power.

Good thing it is my day off and I don't have to worry about the office. :)

Looks like the eye is actually going to stay just north of me so no in the eye pics. :(

Wind is actually worse now then it was a earlier and the cloud cover is so bad that I can't get a satellite signal.

Made breakfast, did reviews, time to make some espresso and then take a shower. :)

damn, for the first time my pool is over flowing....

First pics raw from the camera
http://terrizamore.com/a/DSC_0002.JPG
http://terrizamore.com/a/DSC_0001.JPG

Hahaha, just read about the water in your toilet. :)
Stay safe Cleo!

http://cd34.com/wilma/

Movies are still uploading, but, here are some shots taken during the eye.

The movies were taken from INSIDE the house with the windows closed -- just to give you an idea of the noise.

Hello from under water |waves|

Just a quick note to say we're alive down here. Dial-up seems to be working for now, but that's all that is. Having to connect via AOL so I can't access many things right now. Cell service is out. Cable is gone. I won't be surprised if we lose phone service too.

It was a bad storm here overnight last night. All of the Florida Keys are without power, and we're now in the midst of the second storm surge. The first one raised the water at least four feet over the normal high tide in the canal here. The second surge is adding a foot or more to that. Right now the house is completely surrounded by almost three feet of water (we're on a slight elevation). You can look out and not be able to tell where the canal was, where the street was, where other house's yards begin and end. Boats on trailers are floating. Hopefully the tide will reverse soon and start taking some of the water away.

Not sure when they'll be able to restore power down here. Most generators around here are still off, since everyone has them downstairs, and downstairs is under several feet of water right now.

That's about it for now. I'll get back here when I can and let you know how things are progressing with drying out the Keys.

Simon

Good to see you posting Simon. :)

Took some fast pics. It's still pretty nasty out there but the storm has passed. It's also cold out there so at least I don't have to deal with the heat. Going to start taking down my shutters in a bit.
http://terrizamore.com/a/camera-raw-...-october-2005/

Took my shutters down.

No water, cable modem is down, no cell service, on backup ADSL, not sure how long that will last.

Neighborhood looks like a war zone.

Cleo, I love the line of gas cans by the fence...

Is that one of your roof tiles broken on the driveway or someone else's?

Alex

That is mine. Haven't actually been up on my roof but I think I lost less then a dozen and I have a big pile left over from when they did it. The tiles are just foamed on so I think this is something that I can fix myself.

I am shocked your neighborhood has any trees left, considering the number of storms in the last 24 months. This one really looks like it kicked shit in some places.

Havana Cuba flooded solid too... :(

Alex

Glad to hear everyone is safe, this one just refuses to die as it is back to cat 3 again.