Category: It Happened to Me

It’s the day after Hurricane Ian in Tampa.

The yard’s a big green mess, and I’ll need to drive a couple of nails into the fence, but upon preliminary inspection, there doesn’t seem to be any appreciable damage.

I normally don’t schooch my car that close to the fence and alcove, but I did so for the hurricane, and I’m glad I did! A branch from one of our live oaks came down on it, but its force was blunted by the fence. It didn’t even make a scratch.

Scott, a local developer is building two houses behind ours, and I just called him to let him know that one of the palm trees on the lot keeled over in the winds. Luckily for him, it fell away from the houses.

I should get some work done, and I’ve got a hot date with a rake and broom later on this afternoon.

The wind continues to blow, and the rain keeps coming down, but we still have power and there’s no apparent damage to the house.

With Kevlar sheets covering our windows, our view outside is mediated through our video doorbells and side camera. It’s raining hard right now in Seminole Heights, and it’ll likely rain harder as the day goes on.

Here’s what weather radar looks like as I write this:

Here’s the view from our front doorbell:

Here’s the view from our porch doorbell:

And here’s the view from our side camera:

We’re on a slight incline leading down to the Hillsborough River, so the water in heavy storms tends to roll right past the house. Here’s hoping that it follows tradition this time.

Here’s a photo taken by someone in our neighborhood and posted to one of the (many) Seminole Heights Facebook groups:

Where we are — the Seminole Heights neighborhood in Tampa — the rain has begun to fall in earnest, and we’re now just waiting to see what happens when Hurricane Ian arrives.

We’ve deployed the hurricane kevlar…

…we always maintain a good supply of bottled water (which doubles as my CPAP water supply)…

…the pantry is always stocked…

…as is the bar…

…and while the battery stash isn’t as well-stocked as I would like…

…it should be enough.

I’ll keep you posted as the day goes, and while we have power and internet connectivity!

Hurricane Ian is bearing down on Accordion Bay! In response, we’ve deployed the latest of our anti-hurricane measures: kevlar.

We used to have 1/2″ and 3/4″ plywood sheets with pre-drilled holes that we’d slip onto bolts sticking out of our window frames when a hurricane came. The bolts weren’t the most aesthetically-pleasing thing, and the plywood took a lot of storage space and was a real pain to set up and tear down.

After the last hurricane came through town, we’d decided that we’d had enough of the plywood approach and started looking at other hurricane-proofing solutions for the windows and went with hurricane fabric: kevlar panels with mounting brackets held in place by screws going into holes embedded in the window frame or wall. During non-hurricane times, plastic plugs go into the screw holes.

We have a panel for every window in the house, and the whole set fits in a closet. It would take me a whole afternoon (and ideally, another person to assist) to cover the windows the old plywood way; I can now do the job solo in about an hour with the panels.

Here’s a demo of hurricane fabric in action:

Unpleasant as the replacement costs would be, you consider your windows expendable in hurricane country. What you really want is something that will prevent hurricane projectiles from entering your house (and more gravely, entering you.) We’re counting on the hurricane fabric’s combination of strength and “give” to deflect whatever the cat 3 or cat 4 winds decided to hurl chez nous.

I’ll report back if anything interesting happens.