Lizzie Borden Society Forum

145 mile per hour winds. Charley is heading our way. Wish us good luck! If Kat and I are off line for a while, you will know why. Apparently it is headed right to us.

"May you have Fair skies and Sunshine."

Good luck Stef!

Thanks William. Kat is more freaked out than I am.

Here's another. Menacing isn't it?

Stef and Kat...I will add in some Hail Mary's for you both. I have been watching the news and checking the NOAA website. Batten down the hatches and be safe.

Tracy...

Batten down the "hatchets"? That is what I thought you said, which would be very funny.

The rains just started here (2:35PM). It is dark too. The street lights turned on because it is so dim outside. Very windy too, but in bursts. Where I live there are lots of old 40-50 ft. oak trees. That is what I am worried about. They are extremely dense. I charged the video camera so that I can get some movies if need be.

Thunder now, but not too close. They say it will be all over by midnight. Why does this make me hungry? I'm starving for chocolate. Luckily I loaded up on M&Ms two days ago!

I hope you and Kat will be safe and sound. Any predictions yet as to which way Charley will head once it hits land? Will it be affecting some of our other members along the east coast there? Haulover? Harry? I hope that everyone will be okay. Your all in my thoughts and prayers.

This really is a Friday the 13th, isn't it? Here's where that phrase "weather the storm" takes on new meaning. Take care of yourselves, guys!

Good luck ladies!!

If your house gets blown in the air try to land on a wicked witch!

Seriously, take care.

Hang on tight !



Tracy...

Hope it jumps out of your way, kids. If it doesn't, duck!

Seriously, sending prayers your way.

--Lyddie

It is really ok right now. At 4:50pm there is no wind, it is brighter and no rain. The Orange County Chairman just came on TV and told us all that we were going to get a direct hit around 10PM tonight. Right up I-4 to Daytona. My house is three houses from I-4.

We moved the pots and plants and lawnchairs away from the house, parked the cars on the street, and that is about all we can do. Our house is 50 years old.

We are supposed to get sustained winds of 70 miles per hour. That sucks. As I said, I am more afraid of trees than anything. If the cars get smooshed, well, we have insurance. I am more worried about my computer than my car! Silly girl!

Updated photo.

Wow...Charley is really moving.

They said 9:30 pm would be the time we get hit. Still very calm outside. Hardly any rain. Kat lives 10 miles from me, north, and she said she is getting rain and thunder. Here is the web site I use for local doppler. You can watch the track close up here from our local weather station/news channel if you want to.

http://www.wftv.com/wxmap/1877642/detail.html

If you look there now, you can see the eye below Lake Wales.

That's a great link Stef. I like how you can 'click' for an updated picture. Thank you !


Tracy...

While the weather is not bad yet, I am going to sign off. They said that when we get it it will be all of a sudden. I am going to disconnec the computer and put it in a safe place. I will let you all know later (when the power goes back on) how Kat and I fared.

See ya soon (hopefully!).

Godspeed...


Tracy...

I watched the CBS Evening News a little while ago (Friday evening, August 13); high water, wind, and rain near Fort Myers. I heard earlier today that one of the towns in that area even closed down its emergency center.

Good luck Kat and Stefani!

The latest picture of Charley...




Tracy...

At 10:15 I received a cell phone call from Kat and she is okay. The bulk of the storm has passed through her area.

Will keep all advised if I hear more.

THANK YOU for that good news Harry ! I take it Stef is OK too ?


Tracy...

Harry...are you going to get any of this storm where you live ?


Tracy...

No Tracy, we are only expecting rain. I live in what is known as the upstate, the NW part of the state, pretty far from the coast.

The storm is projected to follow the coast so unless it changes course we are okay here.

Thanks for asking.

Just talked with Kat again. Stef is okay. Neither she nor Kat have electric power. Lots of tree limbs down and a tree fell on Stef's street luckily not hitting anything.

Kat said she had tree limbs all over her back yard but none hit the house.

Winds in Orlando were as high as 105 mph.

Thanks again for the good news Harry. Whew...sound likes the angels were with our girls.


Tracy...

Thanks for the updates Harry. Glad to hear Kat and Stef are okay.

Up north, here, we were wet yesterday from the remains of Bonnie. Tomorrow we're expecting rain and gusty winds from Charley.

I hope you ladies in Fl weathered the storm OK. I saw that doopler radar pic Stef posted. Boy that was scary! People up here complain about the New England winters but I would much rather face any winter blizzard then something like that menacing storm. Hang in there girls and keep us posted. And Mark

Kat and I are ok but as Harry said, we have no power. They don't expect to get it back on for 2-5 days. Luckily I have a gas stove and gas water heater, so we can eat and take hot showers. The hardest part is the lack of air conditioning.

I am writing from my boyfriend's sister's house in Ocoee, FL. She has power. She is the only one I know who does!

My neighborhood was descimated. 50-75 ft. oak trees (100 years old some of them) are down all over, covering streets, and many cars. We had a window blow out on the east side of the house (all the rain and wind was coming from that direction). I had to throw towels down to soak up the incomming rain. We had some roof damage and there was tons of junk in the yards this morning.

We moved our cars to the street yesterday, which was the greatest decision we made. Our driveway was COVERED with huge limbs from oak trees and we need to hire somebody to remove them. We also had a 40 ft. skinny tree fall down, but it fell perfectly, 10 ft away from the cars, parallel to them, without hitting anything, but falling across our yard into our neighbor's yard.

We had it much better then others. Two doors down, the canine cop had 5 tall tall trees on his lot break off and fall on his house, shearing off the front of the house. Most of the trees were pine trees. The house next to him is newly occupied and the owner had parked his red BMW close to his house, thinking it would protec it. Unfortunately, a pine tree split his lovely car in two. We saw a lot of devistation in Winter Park, Maitland, and in between. While others were cleaning up, we took a drive and toured the places we could. Many times we had to turn around and retrace our steps when we hit downed power lines.

Kat's house didn't have any really big trees around it, but her neighbors who did, had them split and fall, sometimes on their houses. SHe did fine. No damage at all as I can tell. Although her power is still off. She had more rain than I did, but I had more wind.

We apparently had a wind gust at 105 mph. I have to say it was very scary. It lasted from about 9 until 10pm. The worst of it at 9:30. I thought the roof was going to blow off. The wind was so strong. The power went off around 9 for good after shorting itself off and on about half a dozen times.

Sitting in the dark listening to the dangerous wind was not fun but we are very glad that this area had very little in the way of injuries or casualties, although there were two deaths in a car accident attributed to the winds at 5 PM before the bad stuff hit.

We went through the eye!! I was born and raised her and this was my very first big hurricane. When the eye hit, all was immediately quiet and calm. It was very scary because just before that we had the worst of it. The direction it was going made the top right quadrant the most dangerous part and that was the part that went right over. After the eye was overhead it was pretty much over as there was little to no winds and rain on the southern side of the storm.

I hear on the radio that there were lots of deaths in Punta Gorda on the coast where the strom hit first. When it hit there it had 145 mph winds. A category 4. When it hit us in Orlando, it was a category 2 and had sustained winds of 75 miles per hour. We had that one burst of 105, like I said they said.

I will log on again when I have power, but there is no telling when that will be. I did want to let you all know we were ok. THank goodness for land-line telephones and battery operated radios.

We are thankful it was not worse. I took tons of pictures of the devastaion this morning and will share them with you when I can log on and upload them on my dime.

THank you for all who kept us in your thoughts. It was good not to be alone during this harrowing experience.

So happy to hear that you, Kat and Lucy were unscathed by the storm.
Clean living pays off.

We expect Charley to hit Long Island late this evening. We don't anticipate winds higher than 50 mph, which is moderate compared to what you and Kat experienced.

I finally have all of my weather forcasting equipment set up - this should be a good test for it - if it doesn't blow away!

So glad to hear you guys are OK. We've been cheered by Harry's updates -- but really needed that firsthand report! Thanks Stef.

Stef and Kat it is so nice to hear from you. Harry was very good at keeping us informed. Glad you are OK.

William...What kind of weather forcasting equipment do you have ? I just took a weather and meterology class this summer so that I could add to my science teaching credentials. I loved it and really learnd a lot. I would like to do some tornado chasing in the near future.

Tracy...

Hey Stef, good to see you back and that you made it through okay.

It looked horrible on the TV reports.

Hope they get the power up and running soon.

Stef and Kat, so glad you girls made it through safely! The eye of a hurricane--that's one to tell your grandchildren. So crazy how these storms can hop around leaving one house untouched and the one next door blown to smithereens. Lucky your cars were on the street--lat place I would think to leave it. Your poor neighbor. I'm sure the worst of the outage will be the air conditioning loss. The air must horrible just now. Am I right in assuming you still have water? That is a blessing. After seeing some of the sickening coverage, I think you came out pretty well. Hope everyone to the north comes out of it well too. They're even warning us inland northerners to be prepared for flooding. (Glad we live on a hill). Prayers to all in the path.

--Lyddie

Ah, let me add myself to the list of wellwishers, so glad that you two are okay! Hopefully your power will be restored quicker than they told you it would be, thats tough being without power for so long! So glad to hear that you are safe!

I'm glad to hear Kat and Stefani did not suffer too much personal damage during Hurricane Charley but the loss of power and services for an extended period of time can be most difficult. Here's hoping you guys are back to some kind of normal soon!

The sun is out this morning in western Connecticut. The remains of Charley blew by us on Sunday with some rain and not much else and was followed by more rain yesterday. We were very lucky here.

So glad to hear all was relatively OK. I haven't been able to get on the board for over a week & was worried. Let's hope the power gets up & running soon!

Spoke to Kat again today. The power is still off. She thinks that it will be up tomorrow.

Let's keep our fingers crossed for her and Stef.

I just got to read this topic!
Thank you all for your kind thoughts and prayers!
And thanks to Harry for keeping you informed and talking to me thru the storm!

Stef said I was scared!!
HA!
I was nervous of my windows but She was scared!!
I went into my *safe room* as soon as the power went out and talked to Harry when we could get through.
I was enclosed and had a foam mattress, a lantern (batterry-operated) a Battery TV , PB and bread, water, a book & all kinds of things and the cell phone worked except thru the worst 20 minutes just before the eye.
The eye went right over us. Sustained winds were in the 70's and 80's and there was 105 mph at one point. Luckily it was QUICK!
Have had intermittent phone and no power for 5 days and nights.

Stef has good pictures I hear.
These are of my street the Saturday morning.

please click on picture

please click on pic

please click on pic

i knew you were okay, but i'm glad to see you back on.

Great pictures Kat...wow...all that damage ! May I show your pictures to my students when we talk about hurricanes this year ?


Tracy...

I actually took a few more with the lens cap on!
The day after a category 2 hurricane can make one do that!
Consequently I have very few pics, which you see.

Stefani, on the other hand, will probably have a good collection.
I think hers will be better, plus she traveled widely in the area and has a bigger representation.
Ask her, when she returns- I think her stuff will be good, especially teacher to teacher!

It's neat you were studying meterology- I wonder what William will come up with?

It's interesting to say, that we recently have had this *Triple Doppler Radar* and that our local ABC station chief meterologist predicted the exact path at 10:30 a.m. Friday contradicting the National Weather Service! He had to come right out on TV and say, "Don't listen to them, listen to ME!" And he was right, and the first to be right on the track of this storm! The NWS didn't capitulate until 1 p.m.!

Oh these guys were SO happy- thrilled actually to have all these new toys and see things in actual 3-D graphics of atmospheric events so incredible they have never before been seen with this kind of equipment!

Here are some shots of the debris which has yet to be collected, my street at the corner, and that street. At least garbage pick-up has been consistent. I saw on the news last night that just the City of Winter Spring's debris will take 4 months to gather and chip up.

Others

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Thanks, Kat. Wow, amazing to see what quick work they make of the clean-up! So glad you made it through okay and with a smaller pile of debris to boot!

10 truckfulls of debris!