Jeanne Inland in the Southeast

Ok, thanks to a generator, and by the grace of God, we're back, sort of. Unfortunately, for others of my neighbors, Jeanne apparantly changed track and went unexpectedly much further south and West than the NHC forecast had predicted (as of when I had to pulll the plug and evacuate). This meant that I, in East Orlando got a maximum of 78mph and my trailer, having already withstood both Frances and Charley (eye of Charley), stood up to the test again. More of my screen porch is missing, but no broken windows and only a few new dents in the trailer extermal metal.

I was so sleepy and tired after moving all but my furnature and major appliances to my boss's garage that both me and Tigger, my cat, felll asleep and missed al but the very worst of the wind and rain. My boss's home lost power about 3:20 am with a rather brilliant and loud flash of exploding transformers down the street a bit. Thus, the generator I brought over from the trailer has served us well once we fighred out that it has TWO oil sumps, both of which have a ignition cut-off switch. We filled one, the one we could see, but the other one, hidden on the reverse side eluded us during the wind and rain for about an hour. Discovering our error got the generator up, the refrig and a light and my UPS's alive so we could follow the storm until DSL went down and the phone dead a bit after power was lost.

They and I are among the 110,000 Frogress Energy customers in Orange county without power but they are making headway. No telling when trailer parks will get power and during Frances, my boss was among 4 homes in the entire subdivision apparantly on a little used circuit feeding a church and a few houses....low priority, 8 days later last time, they got around to it.

My camping gear (camp stove, etc) has come in handy and his fience cooked up all of the meat that had thawed before we figured out the generator and we had a feast. Now, with the fridge empty, and stomach full, at least we could make ice....that is until we got a 'don't use the toilets or drink water because the '[lift station' is without power for the area.....

Oh, well, we are unhurt, the cat has stopped shreiking in fear from the strange noises and scents, I've rested the old bod, and an IHOP was open today and I again have a full stomach.

To all of you that PM'ed me or wished me luck here in the forum, THANK YOU. To those we were able to help and sent me a thank you, you're welcome. To this forum, Ed, Mike and the rest of the gang, thanks for being here when we all needed you. Skeeter, thanks for the maps but I told you to NOT move the line so far West that it would endanger you. You just don't listen apparantly

Please, pray for those caught at ground zero, twice within 5 miles of each other and almost to the hour, 3 weeks apart. If it wasn't lost the first time, the second time got much of what was left. To Polk county, you got all 3 storms eye tracks. Thankfully, it was "Only" a CAT-I-II storm when it got to you that far inland, but it still beat up on you repeatedly. Thankfully, I don't think the panhandle got much, if anything from Jeanne? TLH I guess got it as a TS. Ocala and Gaiinsville apparantly were pretty surprised by the storm and Jax was spared all but a breeze as far as I know. I think this year, all, and I mean all of the Florida coast line communities from Key west to Jax, from the Keys to the Ala/Fla line and all points between had some kind of storm affect, some catatstrophic, some with minimal damage but all affected in some way. Almost all inland counties saw TS or hurricane force winds or flooding rains this past 6 weeks and the St Johns river has flooded so bad that major highways will be closed for many months because nearly half of the highway is now part of the river bank, eaten away and washed down stream. Only 1 lane is passable and they closed that until they can stabilize the shore and bring in (several thousand estimated) dump trucks worth of fill dirt to rebuild the missisng lanes and right of way. It's been a trip for all of us in Florida, and many of our neighbors to the north have had major impact because of the rain, some of which is still falling.

At least it is quiet now!!!

More later but I've got to go sit in a gas line and get a couple lof cans of gas for the generator....NEED THOSE FANS to work tonight

Richard (BTFM) Creighton
East Orlando

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Richard
A forecast is NOT a promise!

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