AAuuugh ! Another F%%%ng Hurricane !!! — Page 2

Prayers and good wishes to all Floridians! Stay safe! Hopefully, Wilma will settle down before she gets to Florida.

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Soon it's gonna rain, I can see it
Soon it's gonna rain, I can tell
Soon it's gonna rain, what are we gonna do?

By tomorrow morning I probably wont have power, so , be safe everyone.

Keep those cows dry, Harris!

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St pete wont get anything, dont worry



and PJ i know if they get to wet they will shrink, there made of leather you know

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Report from PA about S. Florida:

As some of you know, I go to college near Ft. Lauderdale but came up north to flee the hurricane.
As of 10:30am, my answering machine didn't pick up (meaning, no electricity) Ever since then, I've been trying to call my friends down there with no sucess. For some reason my college's website isn't even working and the emergency hotline isn't working either. I do have a flight being held to go back to Florida on Wednesday (supposedly the airports open Wed morning)

The hurricane was severe but moved quickly. We can be thankful for that. Although I'm sure there is some destruction and flooding, I for one, am thankful that it didn't last too long.

Hopefully your family, friends and BWW's that are down there are safe and will be connected soon.

Stay safe

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Here's an update for anyone who is concerned. First of all, the storm was worse than anyone could have imagined. We live on Brickell. It looks like a bomb went off near our condo. There is glass all along the street and many streets are flooded (although I heard that the water has gone down a bit). Many windows facing SW gave into the pressure and shattered... more like imploded. We were in our unit when it happened to us. Our ears were popping like crazy from the pressure and our bldg was swaying- from the 14th floor all the way to the 43rd floor. My husband and I decided to get our dog (of course), insurance information, and run into the stairwell [side note... we wanted to evacuate, but were reassured by our condo, Miami-Dade county, and even the Hurricane Center that NO evacuations were necessary. We even had a hotel reservation to evacuate, but they didn't even have a voluntary evacuation for our community. We also researched our glass windows to make sure they were capable of withstanding category 3 hurricanes and found documentation to support this]. As we were getting everything together, I heard a lot noise and immediately felt an enormous amount of pressure. The sliding glass door (a very LARGE sliding glass door- half of a wall) basically imploded and things were being sucked out of the room. We ran out as quickly as we could. We waited it out in the stairwell, terrified thinking our building was going to collapse. Water started dripping on us and we heard rushing water noise- we thought the storm surge entered our building. We still don't know what that was, but our building's security came looking for us to tell us it sounded like a tornado in our unit and the pressure was preventing them from opening the door to try to contain the damage. The wall that separates our condo and our neighbor's condo was basically sucked inward and collapsed!

The positive side to this is that we now know our neighbors very well! Our building is one of the brand new ones and did fare better than many others downtown. From what I've heard, Brickell and South Beach have power. The cool weather is nature's way of apologizing to us all..... I'll take it!

As for Ft. Lauderdale, I do not know much about power restoration there. We went to my parents' house up there and we barely recognized it! This once beautifully landscaped development is in complete disarray. This is a microcosm of the damage throughout Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties.

I know many of you are probably very concerned about friends and family. Unfortunately, many cellular towers are down, as well as phone lines. We were not able to get a cell signal anywhere until we passed Palm Beach County. We had to drive up to my parents' house in Ft. Lauderdale to make sure they were OK.

We left for a few days and are in Disney. It's amazing how many people we met who are up here seeking refuge as well.

Anyway, that's my long winded account of our experience. Fortunately, the loss of life was minimal. It's just a shock to the system since we were told that the storm would be at most a 2 and probably a 1. I heed all warnings and take weather events very seriously. I don't think any more preparation would have helped us..... except evacaution. Of course, this is nature and no one, not even the best meteorologist (and they were all very good) could have forecast this. I just wish evacuations would have been put in place. I'm sure that will be the case in the future.

If you are interested in seeing photos, go to miami.com. I have many pictures of our bldg and neighborhood, but will not be able to upload them until Sunday or Monday. If you would like to see them, let me know.

My best to all of you and your families who have been impacted by the storm.

For those who care, this is a website for FPL (Florida Power and Light) -- it tells the expectatnt time for each county to get electricity back.

I think it will be back on sooner than they say but here is the site anyway--
Power restoration for S. Florida counties

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I'm concerned about all the seniors in Broward County, who can't get up and get the food, water and ice.

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AARRRGG-- I flew back down to Ft. Lauderdale today assuming we have college tomorrow and so on. Well, we all know what assuming means...

When I got off the plane, I found out that it's been canceled ALL WEEK!! AHHH!!! So, thinking I would go shopping for food and getting back together I was kinda happy I was back....

Until about 4 hours ago...

Obviously I had to take EVERYTHING out of my freezer and fridge. So, I went to Publix (supermarket). Passing by down trees and uprooted trees into rivers was horrifying. Then I came to a stop light....not workiing.
Then I arrived at Publix were there was a grid lock. Cars weren't even moving in the parking lot it was soo congested. I went into Publix thinking I would just get some food for tonight and then go shopping when it was less crowded. I thought about when I was gonna go shopping so I just decided to get a cart and just get a lot today. YEA RIGHT! First I had to 'cart search'- meaning....I had to follow people to their cars to get their shopping cart. I went into Publix and I can't even tell you what was there..NOTHING!! There was no bread, bagels, fruit, rarely any veggies, no frozen food, no meat, no eggs, not even mayo or ketchup!! I picked up a bag of carrots and wondered around the supermarket for a half hour. Seeing the checkout lines I left with nothing. I went to Blockbuster and got two movies, one being "Kinsey"- John Lithgow is in it. Then I went to Wendy's and McDonalds, both who had no power. Then I went to Chicken Kitchen who also had no power. My last resort was Walgreens. I went there and low and behold, they had a bag of chips and canned corn so...guess what I had for dinner!?!

Also, the light at one of the major intersections is out...not only out but not there- it had fallen. It was crazy- I thought I was gonna get killed; I was scared to go and cars we beeping at me.

I shouldn't be complaing because I know people who've been down here from the beginning but still, I feel like I am living with nothing. I do feel horrible for my friend who has 3 kids, a baby on the way that she is having for her friend who couldn't have children (8 months pregnant), her electricty went out at the begining of the hurricane and is still off, her new van was hit by a flying basketball from the hurricane which broke her window, part of her roof is blown off and yesterday she was in the hospital after she fainted and....tonight she is having a haloween party at her house with the neighbors and their kids. Honestly, I have not a clue how she does it.

Anyway- I don't think I'll be leaving my apartment for a while- I'll eat canned corn I have and soup and tuna with no mayo and all that canned non-perishable stuff...

*Sigh*

I profusely appologize for this rant but it had to come out!! THANK YOU!

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Updated On: 11/3/05 at 05:07 PM