Irma Part Three-The Aftermath And The Cleanup

Where I live looked like a war zone after Hurricane Irma. Trees down. Branches down. You could barely navigate the sidewalks and streets for all the debris.

Plus it seemed that everywhere you looked the power was out.

Let's talk about that last thing for a minute.

There are people with their power still not on. Believe you me an hour without air conditioning in steamy, hot, Florida is one thing. Days without it in your house is a whole new ball game. Imagine folks sitting around in their underwear in the searing heat, now imagine if it was you.

When Arby's reopened, when McDonald's reopened, they were packed. A/C and hot food? Where do I sign up?

My wife casually mentioned that the power grid would be up on Sunday. Then she also casually mentioned it would be a week without it for most people.

Our power never went out. Can you say lucky? I think you can.

Heck with my town have you seen the images of Floridians on the news and in the paper?

It'll make you cry.

This was a bad one. Irma was a bad one.

Listening to the conversation at the (barely stocked) grocery store was what I call 'hurricane talk.' Where were you when it hit? Are you okay now? Did you lose power? Be safe.

My twins have not been to school at all this week. They thought it was fun at first, now one says at least he could see his friends and have the day pass quicker. Their school was hit by a tree in the storm and also lost (there's that word again) power.

My sons' Middle School

One of their friends spent the night on Tuesday to escape what his mom said was the "sweltering heat."

They had no power.

He left the following morning with a bag of ice that one of my sons gave him.

Glad to help out.

Clean up on aisle five, actually clean up at the McEwen hacienda.

In our backyard there are two trees, one has hanging moss and a tire swing.

That one was fine.

It was the other one.

After the wind and rain died down, we thought we were pretty lucky (the L word again) that there was no major damage. Turns out we were right and we were wrong. The tree actually didn't fall down but its branches came down. And they were big branches.

We were lucky that it didn't hit our house.

You know Monday was Monday in just about the whole rest of the country.

It was 9-11 for Pete's sake.  I lived in New York then.

A terrible day.

This was terrible too.

Don't get me wrong I'm not equating it to the horror of the Twin Towers coming down but Irma sure got and held your attention.

That she sure did.

#MarkMcEwen
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