One of the Worst in History!

Hurricane Ian...it left rivers in its path.

This was a hurricane that was closely related to Charley in 2004, taking almost the same exact path across the state. But, can you believe that Hurricane Charley could fit in the eye of Ian!!!! That's how monstrous this storm was.

It hit land as a Cat 4 (basically cat 5) near Sanibel Island on Wednesday, September 27th, I believe. We felt the effects here in Port Orange late Wednesday night and all day Thursday. This was one underrated hurricane.

The devastation in Fort Myers, Sanibel Island, and other West coast cities is heartbreaking. There are STILL people recovering from the hurricane here, I can't imagine what it's like still over there.

My little family packed up half of our house on Wednesday afternoon and we spent the rest of the week at my mom and stepdad's house. In the middle of the night Wednesday is when we started hearing the wind howling. We lost power and cell service at 5:30am Thursday morning and didn't get it back until Sunday morning. We did have the generator going to run the fridge, microwave, toaster oven, and later the tv. Little Hazel was a champ thru the entire thing AND it was my husband's FIRST hurricane. Alabama boy did well too.

On Thursday afternoon, my husband and I stupidly went out in the hurricane to try and get home. We went every which way and couldn't get home due to flooding. The amount of water we saw (still unlike the west coast, but...) was unimaginable. I was so worried what our house looked like! I knew our front yard would be a pond, because it's not level whatsoever. It's basically a giant hole in our front yard. I was trying to keep in touch with my neighbor, battling the spotty cell service, but it was no use.

On Friday, my mom and I went back out in her jeep, which is much higher than my Chevy, and we still couldn't get to my house. It wasn't until Saturday that the water had finally receded enough for my mom and I to be able to drive down my street. Like I had imagined, my front yard was a giant swimming pool, some fencing came down in the back yard, a ton of tree limbs, but no water in the house! That was a blessing! As painful as it was to have to throw out all of our food in the freezer and fridge, I still would rather do that than have to throw out all of my belongings to the curb from water damage. There are SO many people in our town that had to do just that. It's awful.

This is what my street looked like when we were trying to get home the first time.

This is how I found our house on Saturday. The water had gone down a ton by then, but I still had to wade thru my driveway to get to my door. It was a lot of cleanup, but we got so lucky and blessed that this was all we came home to.

My favorite pier on the beach here in town was half washed away. There was a fishing pier in the back with a gift shop that are both swept out to sea. The restaurant was basically cut in half, but they plan on rebuilding! <3

This was a hurricane that was closely related totaking almost the same exact path across the state. But, can you believe that Hurricane Charley could fit in the eye of Ian!!!! That's how monstrous this storm was.was.as.s.