Hurricane Milton - 1st person view!

It’s Thursday October 10, 2024 at 1030am EDT. 

Last night Hurricane Milton made landfall on Siesta Key Beach, five miles from my house.

I’ve been in Florida for ten years and this was not my first hurricane.  But this was my first time that I’ve been in a hurricane where we took a direct hit!

The experience was surreal. 

We all knew that we are going to lose power.  It’s just a matter of “when” we lose it.  You hope that can keep power as the storm approaches so you can keep watching the news.

I lost power at 730pm shortly after the hurricane made landfall.

The problem with getting a direct hit from a hurricane is that you get both “parts” of the storm.

So, when we lost power, we were getting hit with the “northern” part of the storm.

The wind was blowing from the back of my house towards the front of the house.

For me, this is the worst part as the back end of my house is all windows with a (normally) beautiful view of a forest preserve.  So, naturally I was very concerned about branches snapping off and flying through one of the windows.  Fortunately, that did not happen.

There were many branches flying onto my roof and landing in my backyard.  But none of them went through the pool cage and through any of our windows.

And the strangest thing happened, as the “eye” of the storm was over me.

Complete darkness.

Complete silence.

No wind.

No rain.

This lasted for over a half hour.  And it is a really bizarre and eerie feeling.  Because deep down you are hoping the worst is over, but logically you know what is coming next.

The southern of this storm was much more violent.

The winds were over 100 mph.

There was more debris as it was picking up everything the north end of the storm left behind an hour ago.

My only savings grace, the winds go in the exact opposite direction.

Fortunately, I don’t have many windows on the front end of my house.

So, I was able to open all the windows on the south end of my house and not worry about any of the forest joining me in my living room.

It was good to have the windows open as the house was getting warm without any A/C.

However, I got a front row seat of the power of mother nature.

The sound of the sustained wind is extremely loud and the wind gusts over 100 MPH are deafening and nothing I’m going to forget for quite a while.

As I type this, we are still without power, internet or cell phone service.

But I am calm and grateful.

I walked around my house and there is a lot of debris, but not any damage (as best as I can tell).

So I am very grateful.

And I am calm as I had a plan going into the storm.

I purchased a lot of food that we can eat without cooking or I can cook on the grill.  I bought an extra propane tank knowing the grill may be are only source of hot food for awhile.

I set out candles, charged up all of our electronics and spare batteries.

My daughter and I packed a “go” bag of our valuables, spare clothes, shoes, cash, water and power bars.  We packed this in case we needed to ride our kayak out of the neighborhood if the storm surge made it all the way to us.  (It never even came close).

I am only calm today because I had a plan, executed the plan and was prepared as best as possible.  The rest was out of my hands.

Having no power and internet is not good.  But that will be back up and running soon. 

Not having Air Conditioning in a hot Florida sun is less than ideal.

Being cutoff from the rest of the world without cell service feels strange.

But all of these things are temporary.

The fact that my daughter and I could ride out a horrible hurricane with confidence is psychologically amazing.

All because we knew what was coming, created a plan and then executed our plan.

So far, the biggest problem that I am facing this morning is not being able to start it with a hot cup of coffee!