Lots Of Support For Florida

I’ve lived in SW Florida for 35 years, and in all that time I have never seriously considered evacuating, though in 2004 hurricane Charlie made an abrupt turn that scared us to death. But that’s another story. 

I went to work on Friday morning with the plans of spending Friday evening and Saturday boarding up the house. Irma was going to make landfall in the Everglades and run up the center of the state. We’d be far enough from the center of the storm that we’d be battered but ok. By noontime it was obvious that Irma had Englewood as the bull’s eye. The track of the storm combined with the strength and size scared the hell out of me. We decided that we would try to evacuate in the very early morning to avoid some of the traffic. One doesn’t want to be caught on the highway in long lines of stop and go traffic in a hurricane with no gas, no food and no lodging. So we got up at 2am to check the most current track of the storm … still the same. Then a check of the traffic on I-75 … clear and moving, and so we were out of the door before 3am with New Orleans as our destination. I told Toni as we left, that if I-75 turned into a parking lot that we’d turn around and ride the storm out at home.

It was a good decision to be on the road early as we had clear sailing on I-75, though it got heavier the farther north we went. Later in the day that 4 hour trip was taking 8-12 hours with no gas or food. Forget lodging.

By the time we got to Lake City and I-10, it was getting light. As we headed west we immediately started to see response vehicles. Bucket trucks and support vehicles associated with those bucket trucks were coming in waves: three to five bucket trucks with two or three pickup trucks in support, hundreds and hundreds of bucket trucks. There were tractor-trailers with commercial generators; two, three, four generators per trailer. There were other vehicles that were marked emergency response and others with medical supplies, and then what we assumed were National Guard vehicles. All of these vehicles stuck out because 1) they were traveling in groups and 2) there were very few vehicles traveling east. Most of these vehicles had logos and names on them. They were from Texas, Arkansas, Colorado, California, Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi and others I don’t remember. In all, we certainly saw more than 1,000 support vehicles.

The other thing we noticed on I-10 were the rest areas. They were completely full of vehicles, 18-wheelers, cars, vans and motor homes filling all of the parking spaces, and the on and off ramps to the rest areas; so many vehicles we didn’t want to stop. The state had placed 10-20 port-a-potties at each rest area to help with the overflow. We finally stopped at one rest stop west of Tallahassee. There was a large table set up in a picnic area. A group was grilling hot dogs that they were offering for free to the hungry travelers. Unfortunately, we didn’t find out who was responsible for the generous gift.

We started our return on Tuesday. An hour and a half into our trip I received a phone call that convinced us to turn around. Again, no gas, no food, no lodging and I-75 was like a parking lot.

After four days of beignets, gumbo and other delights, we finally headed home on Thursday. Along the way we continued to see support vehicles headed east as well as a few search and rescue vehicles headed west. We guessed that they had completed their work. We stopped at a rest area and a convoy of bucket trucks and their support vehicles headed east pulled in after us. The company was Entergy. We had passed them earlier in the day. This group was from Arkansas, though the company had vehicles coming from other states. They were headed for Stuart, Florida. We tried talking them into going to Englewood, as we still didn’t have power. Our powers of persuasion didn’t work, but we had a good conversation with one lineman.

We continued to see support vehicles, the most notable was a trailer with about 20 transformers. There were support vehicles visible our entire trip home. Returning to the west were several convoys of Louisiana Search and Rescue vehicles complete with airboats and Jon boats. 

Most of our trip home was uneventful and smooth, but the drive from Ocala to Gibsonton was very slow, lots of stop and go. That normal two-hour ride from Ocala to Englewood took four and a half hours. Upon arriving home, we had power. Our yard was a mess with about 10 trees down including a huge banyan tree that was leaning on the house. There are a couple of torn shingles and the rain gutters are smashed, but no real damage. We count ourselves lucky. Englewood had been smacked with a stick, but we were spared the battering ram.