Hurricane Matthew: The Aftermath
The title makes our situation seem rather grim, but I assure you all that the family is doing just fine. The tail winds of the storm continued on into the late hours of the night. When all was said and done, all 4 of our family homes ended up with minimal damage.
Mom and dad's power was restored last night around 11 PM. They lost a portion of their fence and had 5 of their Cypress trees go down. Fortunately, the trees are the ones located by the common area (for those of you who are familiar with the property, these are the trees on the opposite side of the fence from the outdoor kitchen area). Amy and David have returned back to their homes.
Justin's street is still blocked off by this large tree. This is the only entrance and exit. He does, however, have a motorcycle and a trail at the back of his property that leads to the main road. He's taken this path many times and will be able to come and go. He and Riley, his dog, are doing well. He is still without electricity at this time.
Scott and Melissa's home has gone unscathed as well. Their power was restored at the same time mom and dad's was so they were able to sleep with the air conditioning going last night. Harper was a champ during the storm and her and Melissa are doing great. They just paid us a visit and Harper is her usual cheery self.
Scott has been at work over in Orange Park. He will be able to return home to his family tonight.
Our household is back to business as usual. Our house guests have returned to their home. We have taken down all of the boards and started to piece of home back together. As you can see from the photos above, the only damage we suffered was the loss of our mailbox. The "cross" that hovered over our house all afternoon and evening is still tangled in the vines. Although it has dropped several feet, it still remains but no longer serves as a threat to us.
We just received notice that we are under a boil water advisory...naturally this occurs after we drained our bath tubs however, we still have several cases of water and 4 gallons of water as well.
We spent some time at mom and dad's house this morning helping them clean up the debris from the Cypress trees. We may be able to make some really cool Christmas ornaments from the trunks of the trees :)
Mom went out to Mayport to check on the condition of her buildings on the base. The military base was devastated and her buildings have incurred quite a bit of damage.
While she was also gone, she also checked on Grandma Mary. Mary was forced to evacuate her home after it started rapidly filling with water. A storm chaser took her to a hotel where she had electricity and a warm shower. The employees at the hotel even washed her clothes for her since she was soaking wet.
This will be the last of our hurricane updates. Thank you to all of you who reached out to us during the storm. We appreciate your concern for our well being. Your phone calls and texts messages helped keep us distracted from the howling winds and pounding rain outside. We are happy to see that so many of you referenced our blog to read the status updates of our family. We hope it was able to put you at ease.