Power went out Wednesday night, 11-ish. I got it back at 4:30 pm Saturday.
This was quite the storm. I’m sure you’ve seen the devastation in the Ft. Myers-Naples area on the news. Ft. Myers Beach, that lovely, wonderful laid back beach town has been pretty much wiped off the map. SW Florida was absolutely decimated, but Ian was a huge storm and the damage continued inland long after landfall. By the time it reached me, hundreds of miles from Ft.Myers, it was either a strong tropical storm or a Category 1 hurricane (official opinions vary).
I’ve been through several hurricanes, but as I’ve said, I’m inland. When the coasts evacuate, they come here. And hurricanes usually move faster when they pass through. Ian was Insane – huge, slow-moving, intense and with more rain than you could ever believe. I am not exaggerating that it rained hard for 48 hours, non-stop. It rained most of the day before Ian arrived, and then when the official rain started, it was just endless rain and wind.
The outer bands started very early Wednesday and it didn’t move on until late Thursday. We got over a foot of rain – I’ve heard up to two feet – in less than 48 hours. Places in Orlando that NEVER flooded were underwater. A friend lost her roof. Others had flooding in their homes. I lost power for a little less than three days and was only mildly inconvenienced. I am very grateful.
It didn’t even screw up our plans to attend Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party! I was truly afraid it would, either because of the storm or because I’d get called in to work for storm duty, but it all worked out. It was an expensive splurge for the party, and sold out, so it was another thing to fret over during the storm.
But not to worry. I had no power at home, but I spent Friday afternoon and late into the night at Magic Kingdom, where it was like Ian never happened. No pictures because I’m a bad blogger (and also didn’t have great views of the shows, etc, at least not great enough to share). We ate special snacks, (a coconut-matcha “gravedigger” milkshake was wonderful!) We rode rides, saw the parade (the gravedigger guys totally lived up to my expectations, they did a sharply executed march-dance, dragging shovels on the pavement to shoot sparks) and I saw the headless horseman! The Headless Horseman opened the parade, trotting the parade route on a huge black horse, holding his glowing head in his outstretched hand. The lighting for the parade is unusual, ruining the few pictures I did take, apologies. I was there with a half-charged phone, not really set for being all “blogger.” (Edit: I did find a few half decent photos and went back to add them to this post.)
I can attest that the HH was physical, not spectral, because the big handsome horse he rode very distinctly smelled like horse. The aroma of warm horse lingered after he passed, but it was still a great effect. A CM with a scooper and rolling bin followed at a discreet distance, and the woman on the curb in front of us cracked us all up by cheering for her – “MVP! MVP!” She was trying to be invisible and did not crack a smile.
The Sanderson Sisters stage show really exceeded my expectations! Great dancing, singing, drama, humor, small explosions, a huge cauldron, lots of villains, including Dr. Facilier, the Shadow Man from the Princess and the Frog. I would have absolutely loved it except by that time (10 pm) my feet were screaming from standing on concrete. If I’d had a chair under my ass I could have watched it forever, but stage shows in the hub are standing room only.
I’d never done this party before and TBH, probably won’t do it again for a while. It was tons of fun and I came home with a 2.5 lb bag of really quality candy from the trick or treating. I have an obscene quantity of mini-Snickers, the CMs load treat bags with huge handfuls at every stop. It’s a Big Bag o’ Pre-Diabetes! I have to figure out what to do with that haul, because if it stays in my house I will eat it. I think I’ll make post-storm goodie bags for a few neighbors.
Working from home is a pain with things like this. I used to just throw a bag of leftover candy in the break room in the office, confident that it would vanish.
Now that I have power again, today’s mission is to restock my fridge, and also hit Target and Michaels for some holiday decor. Friday night definitely put me in the mood.
It’s a relief to sleep normally, with A/C and without my phone alerting about flood warnings every 20 minutes. I haven’t had a normal night’s sleep since…Tuesday? Maybe before that.
Anyway, we were very fortunate and had no storm damage. The only casualty was the contents of my fridge, which TBH, was overdue for a good clean-out. And that, honestly, was a good thing. More about that to come.
I’m so glad you are ok and that your place wasn’t damaged. I wish this wasn’t the new norm, but I think it might be. Big hugs.
I’m so glad you came through OK!
So glad you came through without any damage! And hurray for having power back. Can’t believe you were so lucky with the Disney party. Here’s to continuing good luck, as another storm looks like it’s heading for the Caribbean.
SHUT UP about another storm! We’ve had our 500 year experience already! Seriously, I don’t want to appear to minimize how bad it was even where I am. We were just freaking lucky. We are a (public) golf course community, so we had more open space to absorb the insane amount of water that came down. It still took out many trees and the falling trees took down power lines. I talked to a neighbor whose daughter lives about two-three miles away, it’s a war zone there, a huge oak crashed into a building, the small river that runs nearby flooded. There’s still a lot of flooding, people kayaking through neighborhoods to check on neighbors. It was BAD here, but compared to what hit Naples-Ft. Myers, it was not devastating. It’s going to be interesting going forward. People in the middle of the state who did not live on rivers or in flood zones and weren’t required to have flood insurance lost their homes. The economic issues will linger for years.