Continued Hurricane Michael recovery

[rgano]

Today, nineteen months, two weeks, and 2 days after Hurricane Michael wreaked havoc upon us, my boat shed and lift replacement effort is complete, a job first started in November 2019. Top to bottom photos before, damage, today. Needless to say, I am a happy camper, but I also know that my frustration with the never-ending difficulties of bringing this one to completion, is NOTHING when compared to what many here have suffered. Ruined homes and businesses and the disrupted lives lives they represent are still in evidence with very little looking. Our major marinas are slowly rebuilding with only wreckage clearing completed. Thus spoke the Cat FIVE hurricane.

 

[O C Diver]

Looks good! I loose track of the hurricanes that ravage the AICW. Each year you see more docks rebuilt and some that have been abandoned, never to be rebuilt or removed. Glad yours had a happy rebirth!

Ted

 

[rgano]

You can only imagine the empathy pouring out of the Eleohn in March and April as we transited the AICW looking at the damaged piers not yet repaired. The number of contractor barges was amazing to us who have only two in our area.

 

[Miz Trom]

Hi Rich:

I understand all too well that the years it takes to find reliable contractors in order to rebuild after a hurricane can be stressful and frustrating. BIG HUGE Congratulations on finally accomplishing your beautiful rebuild. Michael was a mother.

How did your house fare during Michael?

I notice from your photos that your original lift raised your boat quite a bit higher than your new boat lift. What made you decide to go with less height in your new lift?

Down here in St. Petersburg on Tampa Bay, our tide differential averages 3-4 feet (and 5-6 feet during the once-a-year king tides in October).

What is the typical tide differential up there in the Panhandle?

Cheers,
Mrs. Trombley

 

[Keysdisease]

My customer Eastern Shipbuilding was basically levelled by Michael. An almost ready to deliver fish processor ship sunk at the dock. It was amazing how fast they were back up and running.
Being a native of South Florida I have seen a few. Cleo and Donna are the furthest back I remember, Andrew and Wilma were standouts. Many friends in the lower Keys still recovering from Irma.
Good to see you recovered, your Pilot looks happy to be home

 

[rgano]

Hi Rich:

I understand all too well that the years it takes to find reliable contractors in order to rebuild after a hurricane can be stressful and frustrating. BIG HUGE Congratulations on finally accomplishing your beautiful rebuild. Michael was a mother.

How did your house fare during Michael?

I notice from your photos that your original lift raised your boat quite a bit higher than your new boat lift. What made you decide to go with less height in your new lift?

Down here in St. Petersburg on Tampa Bay, our tide differential averages 3-4 feet (and 5-6 feet during the once-a-year king tides in October).

What is the typical tide differential up there in the Panhandle?

Cheers,
Mrs. Trombley

The house took about $60K worth of damage due to trees falling on it, BUT we were still able to live in it once power and water were restored after a couple of weeks. Except for the night after the storm, I never slept out of the house while the wife ferried in generator fuel and food daily before the nightly curfew from where she was staying with relatives 35 miles away. It took a year to right all of its damage with me only having to threaten bodily harm to one non-performing contractor to get some advance money back. The wipeout of our trees will take longer than I have left to restore, but we are working on it anyway.

The boat was lifted to the original height just because I had the height under the original shed which was built for our GB42, Calypso. The current height is quite sufficient. This is not Frolic's hurricane hiding place; so it does not have to be above all possible surge heights. Normal tides are under 2 feet.

The only blessing about Michael was its small diameter, but for those of us in it, the experience was horrific. We lost a LOT of people who just gave up and left, and our biggest financial driver, Tyndall Air Force Base, was DESTROYED and will be a number of years rebuilding.

And now the virus crisis has further devastated an already very weak local economy which was showing signs of recovery. The beach city, just outside of Michael's kill circle, has enormous issues with lack of labor, but they just reported the best Memorial Day rush of people ever. Now our small CV19 numbers will probably climb way up.

 

[rgano]

My customer Eastern Shipbuilding was basically levelled by Michael. An almost ready to deliver fish processor ship sunk at the dock. It was amazing how fast they were back up and running.
Being a native of South Florida I have seen a few. Cleo and Donna are the furthest back I remember, Andrew and Wilma were standouts. Many friends in the lower Keys still recovering from Irma.
Good to see you recovered, your Pilot looks happy to be home

Yeah, Eastern had an amazing comeback. I guess it's hard to keep welders down! I think Brian and his people must have come up with some innovative ways to house workers because so much of the housing over there was wiped out.

The Gulf was superheated in 2018, and probably this year too, and I remember thinking that anything headed our way was going to be a bad one. NOAA was slow to tell the public that the mere Cat 2 Michael a couple hundred miles SW was probably going to blow up to a Cat 5 overnight catching short those unaware of the warning signs. It certainly did not take my masters degree in oceanography and a lot of experience dodging typhoons to know that disaster was staring us in the face. I had been ridding our home of the most menacing trees over the last few years as funds permitted, but the neighbors trees, which were beyond my control, were the ones that got us, and they were north of our home and not considered the most likely threat. Oh well, now they are ALL gone.