Hurricane Irma - September 9, 2017

The outer bands of Irma came through starting at 1am with wind, rain, and lightening. The storm was not outside of a typical storm in Oklahoma City. We were very lucky because we didn't take a direct hit like Hurricane Matthew the year before. Cuba and Puerto Rico took most of the force away from the Bahamas.

We were worried about storm surge and flooding. Mr. Delancy predicted correctly and none of that was an issue. We did lose power as the storm came through. And it came back on at 4 am briefly. By 11 am, we had our power back. We checked and the storm had fully passed the Bahamas. We were in the clear!

The airport announced that it will be open for limited operations on Sunday, which was the day we were supposed to leave. I called American and found out there were no flights that day. We decided to keep our Tuesday flight, as Monday would have been standby.

It was time to explore. The ocean was angry and the wind was whipping the sand all around us. A hat was no protection for the sand. We found one shell and headed back quickly. After much debate, we decided to head over to the other side of the island and stay at the British Colonial Hilton. There's more food options and we were hoping for some fun before it was time to leave. Surprisingly, the Hilton had space for us. Originally, we were going to stay there on September 9th but with the Hurricane, I decided to cancel that reservation.

The rest of the night, we ate, played yahtzee, watched the storm out to sea and watched tv. We never really unpacked, so we were ready to head to the Hilton the next day.  When we were packing for the trip, Ryan never thought that Hurricane Irma would come and mess up our trip. For a good amount of time, the storm was a category 5. An F5 tornado is the largest recorded tornado. His insight in packing was impressive.

Weather Saturday

As I am writing this post, there's thunder, lightening, and heavy fat rain outside. I will not be going outside until things start to calm down.

Yesterday, Chomps had a little adventure that I don't want repeated. When hubby came home, Chomps was waiting and crying loudly. As soon as hubby opened the front door, Chomps bolted out into the hallway and started walking around. He was so annoying after that adventure because he wanted out again. Awe, Chompsy, there's dogs that live here too. You don't want to be out in the hall.

I wanted to share a crazy story with you about a windstorm in Anchorage. I couldn't find any good stories to link too because it was a long time ago but Anchorage was declared a disaster zone and FEMA came to help out. It was March 13, 2003 and I had classes in the morning and work afterwards. I bundled up in all my winter gear for the day. I had to take a bus after class to get to my job and the wind was absolutely howling. With wind chill, I was waiting outside in negative temperatures.

I was having a hard time standing up in the wind. Even with all my bundling up, I was shivering and very cold. After work was over, I waited for hubby to pick me up and the wind was still howling! The doors to the mall were opening and closing with all the wind. When hubby got there, I struggled to open the car door. Our home was an apartment in the garden level, and we didn't have any damage. Nothing happened to our car but others were not so lucky. McDonald's sign was blown over. Little puddle jumper planes were blown over. There was over $800,000 in damage. I'm surprised our car was ok.

Apparently, there was another wind storm just about a month ago. These are called wind storms but the intensity is that of a hurricane. And I stood outside for nearly half an hour in this craziness. I should have called in sick.