Thursday, October 6th and Friday, October 7th Hurricane Matthew tore through Central Florida leaving over a million people without power. Luckily it curved East, lessening the blow. This category 4 hurricane was the largest to hit the peninsula state in over a decade (Hurricane Wilma, 2005).

All-in-all it was kind of like a stressful family holiday gathering. Like the holiday season, the days just leading up to the “event” the stores were packed. Gas stations, the ones that still had gas, had lines wrapping around the lot and lined up into the major roads. People in the stores were running around getting their last minute necessities, cutting in lines and yelling at each other. Taking things out of other people’s carts even! For real – witnessed it first-hand (and the lady was standing right there when they took her stuff!). Shelves were bare. Traffic was nuts. The one good thing about getting laid off a couple months ago, was that I was off during the day and able to get what we needed before everything was picked over.

My poor dogs were stressed out all day knowing something was going on but not sure what. Jeanie-bean laid in our bed for the majority of the last couple days. Neither dog wanted to eat or drink anything for fear of having to go outside.

We were one of the lucky ones who didn’t lose power. It flickered on and off a couple times but that was it. So thankful! Most neighboring communities seem to be without power.

After the weather calmed down we took a drive around to check out the local damage. It was better than I had expected. Some trees down, a few fences, but mainly just debris. It did look like a ghost town though. More places were closed than Christmas day! Only a few random places were open. Even i4 had minimal traffic!

We had minimal damage … a large whole in the screen on the patio … part of the fence disconnected from the post … and the soffit on the side of the house came loose.

Now we’re just dealing with the aftermath. Getting things fixed and putting our normal day-to-day lives back together. I was surprised at how disconnect I felt to the rest of the world as everything revolved around the here-and-now.