October 10th 2018
10/10 - In 1995, I tried to evacuate for Hurricane Opal and did not make it further than about 5 miles (and 4 hours), so I returned to my house and rode it out. Although it was a Cat 3, there was minimal damage to the house. It was primarily a flood event and my neighborhood did fine. When I went to bed last night, Michael was supposed to strengthen to a strong 1, maybe 2, so my plan was to ride it out. When I woke up early to check the status, it had ramped up to a Strong 3, maybe 4, but it was too late by that time to try to evac.
The storm progressed to basically a category 5. Newsweek reported that landfall was officially 1240, but I was watching the radar progress on my phone and it appeared that we were very near to the eye wall at 1219. I am now a T-mobile customer for life. Verizon failed miserable, ATT was spotty, but I had full coverage throughout the storm and only lost it for about a 30 minute period a day and a half later (I suspect a generator ran out of gas).
As the storm ramped up, the skylight over the master bathroom was sucked off and the winds/rain started dumping all sorts of nasty water into the room, so I closed it off. I really had to fight the door, because the winds kept trying to draw in inwards since it opens that way but I knew that I needed to block it off to prevent pressure differentials in the house from causing more damage. My library has a window A/C unit so I can leave it running while I am frequently out of town, to keep the books dryer without having to cool the whole house. I spent the majority of time soaking up water that was seeping in from under the unit. That is, until I heard the roof rip off. It did not take long before the ceiling fan was leaking and I knew that the wall board in the ceiling would eventually collapse, so I moved what essential items I could out of the room to my "safe room" - the interior guest bathroom, along with my 7 days survival gear. After peak winds running from East to West in excess of 120mph (my estimate), we were dead-center in the eye from about 1250 to 1310. All the neighbors came out in the calm and we looked up at clear skies; spooky. I had about a quarter of my roof missing, the majority of that over my library. At about 1305, I told everyone they needed to get back inside because the south eye wall was within a couple of minutes of us.
The experience of the South wall was more intense than the first time, because while we ramped up gradually at first, this hit us at 120-130 mph (again, my estimate) within a minute from nearly calm. My neighbor's garage opening faced directly into the West to East wind, the door collapsed first, and then the brick wall disintegrated and pieces hit my house. This caused enough purchase for the winds to rip off one of my wall panels and then the wind was strong enough to push my inner wallboard in to the house and the storm saturated the master bedroom and my drawer chest. The guest room roof opposite the library was ripped off at this time too, so I secured that door and retreated to the kitchen, where I spent the majority of the remaining time in the storm. Many more bands came through, but the winds did ease.
By 1545, the brunt had passed and we were out side again. My steel garage door was bent inward; 2 panels were missing from the garage roof and that apparently allowed for a significant pressure differential. I also noticed later that the drywall fire break between the ceiling/attic space of the house and the open garage had been completely blown into the garage by the winds as well. While my lone Palm tree in the front yard had survived well, every one of the 14 trees in my back yard had snapped at about 5' high except one live oak that had been toppled pulling up a root ball/disc. At least none had hit the house - my neighbor and I had removed two trees less than 6 months prior along our joint border that possible could have done quite a bit of damage. Nor did any of my trees fall into neighbor's property on either side, all wound up in my yard (along with someone's tin shed...)
I spent the remainder of the day filing my USAA claim and letting my neighbors use my phone to do the same. I was the only one with T-Mobile in the group and I was the only one with service. #TMobile4Life
The storm progressed to basically a category 5. Newsweek reported that landfall was officially 1240, but I was watching the radar progress on my phone and it appeared that we were very near to the eye wall at 1219. I am now a T-mobile customer for life. Verizon failed miserable, ATT was spotty, but I had full coverage throughout the storm and only lost it for about a 30 minute period a day and a half later (I suspect a generator ran out of gas).
As the storm ramped up, the skylight over the master bathroom was sucked off and the winds/rain started dumping all sorts of nasty water into the room, so I closed it off. I really had to fight the door, because the winds kept trying to draw in inwards since it opens that way but I knew that I needed to block it off to prevent pressure differentials in the house from causing more damage. My library has a window A/C unit so I can leave it running while I am frequently out of town, to keep the books dryer without having to cool the whole house. I spent the majority of time soaking up water that was seeping in from under the unit. That is, until I heard the roof rip off. It did not take long before the ceiling fan was leaking and I knew that the wall board in the ceiling would eventually collapse, so I moved what essential items I could out of the room to my "safe room" - the interior guest bathroom, along with my 7 days survival gear. After peak winds running from East to West in excess of 120mph (my estimate), we were dead-center in the eye from about 1250 to 1310. All the neighbors came out in the calm and we looked up at clear skies; spooky. I had about a quarter of my roof missing, the majority of that over my library. At about 1305, I told everyone they needed to get back inside because the south eye wall was within a couple of minutes of us.
The experience of the South wall was more intense than the first time, because while we ramped up gradually at first, this hit us at 120-130 mph (again, my estimate) within a minute from nearly calm. My neighbor's garage opening faced directly into the West to East wind, the door collapsed first, and then the brick wall disintegrated and pieces hit my house. This caused enough purchase for the winds to rip off one of my wall panels and then the wind was strong enough to push my inner wallboard in to the house and the storm saturated the master bedroom and my drawer chest. The guest room roof opposite the library was ripped off at this time too, so I secured that door and retreated to the kitchen, where I spent the majority of the remaining time in the storm. Many more bands came through, but the winds did ease.
By 1545, the brunt had passed and we were out side again. My steel garage door was bent inward; 2 panels were missing from the garage roof and that apparently allowed for a significant pressure differential. I also noticed later that the drywall fire break between the ceiling/attic space of the house and the open garage had been completely blown into the garage by the winds as well. While my lone Palm tree in the front yard had survived well, every one of the 14 trees in my back yard had snapped at about 5' high except one live oak that had been toppled pulling up a root ball/disc. At least none had hit the house - my neighbor and I had removed two trees less than 6 months prior along our joint border that possible could have done quite a bit of damage. Nor did any of my trees fall into neighbor's property on either side, all wound up in my yard (along with someone's tin shed...)
I spent the remainder of the day filing my USAA claim and letting my neighbors use my phone to do the same. I was the only one with T-Mobile in the group and I was the only one with service. #TMobile4Life
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