Sally

[colbysmith]

Hey Tina. Glad to hear you and Steve are ok. What a welcome for your mom! Well at least no more snow for her! Or extreme cold! You guys take care. Hope to see you in March at Hontoon. Colby

[thataway]

Steve and Tina,
Glad to hear you are OK! Great on Steve's mother buying the next door condo.

Jack and Jeanne--John and Eileen are fine, their boat was in the shop! They have posted earlier.

It is heart rendering to walk down the street and see the debris--people's lives all on the curb to be taken off to the dumpster. Those who have the big contract dumpsters are full, and more are on the way later today. Those who have flooding have to remove the drywall up to the 4' from the floor level (assuming that the water was no higher than 3 feet--if more than 3' it must be taken off up to 8'. After drywall is removed, all exposed area has to be sprayed with mold retardant, and allowed to dry. All electrical which was under water needs to be replaced.

Our losses are minimal--but we had 45, 42 gallon contractor bags of debris raked up and put on the curb, we have an accumulative about 50' long x 3' wide and 3' high of other debris--limbs, logs, planks, cut up fences ...We were able to get up most of the plastic and paper, so it will not go into the bay/ocean. The litter included dead frogs, squirrels, lots of bugs/and other bugs to bite you when raking!

We are having 9 workers for dinner tonight. (Yep, I know about COVID 19, but life has to go on.). It is amazing what has been done in several days in getting houses cleaned out. One is particularly sad: the wife was out of town, the husband apparently left after getting his animals together before the storm hit, and has not been back--the house is badly damaged, and appears as if they have abandoned it, along with vehicles etc...No clean up done etc. We had one house like that from IVAN--still standing, but inside gutted. County will not tear it down. Owners will not sell (divorce) to allow neighbors buy and tear it down. As long as the weeds don't grow too high, the county will not condemn the house....

I have photos on the iPhone I am trying to transfer--showing high water, vs today with mounds of trash in front of every house. About half of damaged cars have been removed. Unfortunately owners get less than low blue book for the car.

Still no sign of FEMA, any governmental agency, or the Red Cross. (At least in our part of town). Our neighborhood was one of the hardest hit--with over 50% overall home flood damage, plus 90% vehicular loss. Several of the houses on stilts had the entire side and front wall of the house torn off--probably microburst or nigh wind gust. The official rain fall for our area was 31 inches.

[hardee]

WOW, Bob, You have really been hard at it, punching back at Sally, and taking care of business. What a shame that those houses are deserted. Prayers for all those involved and affected.

Harvey
SleepyC

[gulfcoast john]

Tonight it looks like the next plague will be a Cat 3 hurricane, rather than locusts, which was my prior bet.

We had a local electric company install a double throw, 100A 220v safety switch to our outside power service and then (in the attic over the garage) to a L14-30R 220v generator input connected to the entire 110V panel.

We have a Wgen 7500 running Watts generator arriving Friday. I would prefer a Honda 7000iu, but it’s $4,500 and I just can’t justify that for the rare use for home backup. The W7500 has 9,500 startup Watts, keyfob remote start and automatic choke, and a 3 yr warranty like the Honda for $849 including shipping. Dr Bob’s natural gas whole-house solution is more elegant, but this solution is more cost-efficient for us at this point in our lives.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01N80F68E?tag=highlightreviews-85153-20&th=1

Unfortunately, the Cat 3 hurricane arrives Thurs night, so the timing is unfortunate. We still have our trusty Honda 2000iu (we sold the spare to next door for $400). The cable box had to be moved. An upgrade to 50A service would only require changing the Romex from the transfer switch to the generator connect input. Total parts and labor $840, but would be cheaper for a 110v/30A wiring and less labor.

Hope this helps if you are making similar decisions. PM me with any questions. Yeah, I know it’s not boating, but it’s Hurricane prep.

Cheers!
John

[colbysmith]

Stay safe guys and gals!

[hardee]

John and all the rest in Hurricane ally, again, you are in my prayers, for safety, security and sanity. I would be going stark raving bananananas after 1 hurricane.

Be safe, and stay safe. Plan ahead for the worst, and hope for the best.

Harvey
SleepyC

[thataway]

Several factors--and we do hope that the storm does not arrive. The water by the shore has cooled down from upper mid 80's 3 weeks ago to the upper 70's now. The high water temps are further South in the Gulf. Right now this looks like a superstorm going on several models to a Cat 5! However the models show it going closer to Morgan City (Laura), or maybe New Orleans. It will have been attenuated by landfall. It is still a very dangerous storm.

Good on getting a larger generator John. Now you need to stock pile a lot of gasoline. We used 100 gallons total during Ivan 2004 with our 7,500 watt generator. (We still have it, as a possible back up for us--or others if they need it). I have enough gas cans for 50 gallons if you want to borrow them. (Option is to have the Tom Cat fuel tanks full, and bring the boat to the house before the storm to have the fuel. I believe you are high enough to avoid flood.

The 18000 Watt Generac fueled by natural gas is in the $4,200 range, plus installation of natural gas lines, platform and auto transfer switch (included). Our Generac is now 15 years old. We change the oil yearly, Battery every 4 years, and it auto starts each week, and runs for 15 minutes. If we have a power outage more than 60 seconds, it starts up and carries the entire house load including the air conditioning. We had to use the generator about 60 hours during Sally--Ivan was several weeks, when we had the smaller generator. We have a significant outage about once every 2 months. Some of the generators were not mounted high enough, and even though the flood waters were 3 feet below the generator, the salt spray and waves shorted the generators out. Ours is 5 feet above our house foundation, which is almost 10 feet above high median tide. (Generator is about 15 feet above mean high water.).

We still have our 7,5 KW unit similar to yours. Probably one should start it regularly and run them at least once a month.

Keep lines tight--and boats out of the water. We could have more flooding, since ground is saturated. Some of our Pensacola areas have been under reported as to the extent of damage. A tree down is not as dramatic TV as a house totally destroyed, or flooded. Not one photo in the photo of our neighborhood, where the average loss is going to be over the $250,000 flood insurance minimum and then add in vehicles for all but 3 houses. (We are fortunate, being higher on a mound, but if it is anything over a 3 at landfall with in 50 miles we are out of here. (RV towing Marie's Lincoln, Truck towing the C Dory (with its 100 gallon gas tank full, and an extra 30 gallons of diesel, plus a 35 gallon auxiliary diesel tank in the truck. (RV is also diesel, but only 24 gallon tank).