We came through fine and all my loved ones, that's all I can ask for. No
damage to the houses except for LOTS of debris and fallen trees, one
was the only large live oak on our property, completely fallen over,
when I get a chance I'll post photos. Also quite a few pine trees.
Haven't heard the latest numbers on the wind or rain here in
Brooksville, all I know is I do NOT want to ever go through more than a
level one, which is all I know about what we got here. I was so scared
for my two sisters, one in Lakeland and one in Eastern Hillsborough and
as I listened on the radio they were getting up to 100 mph winds. The
power just came on - went out last night at 8:15. I am thankful it's
already back on. Back in 2004 it took them a couple of weeks to restore
power on this road from what we hear. I hope all of you out there are
doing OK and will be able to get back to normal very soon.

I posted in the panicking thread of my return to town but since then we have got the power back on.

The front yard looks like it was attacked by a palm tree with branches all over the place the back yard very calm except for the sofit damage on the back of the house and side.

The neighbor behind me lost part of his fence that was giving us both privacy...i hope he replaces it.

Yesterday i went thru the fridge and the upright freezer tossing most everything. Just as I was taking the last of the stuff outside i walked in and the light in the open fridge was on...the power had come back.

i plugged the router back in and there was internet. Turned the ac back on to start cooling the house down and left for my sister's since all my stuff for showers and eating is over there. Spent the night there, came back today to finish cleaning the icky junk out of the fridge, hoping it will make the house smell better.

hoping it will make the house smell better.

If it helps any, there was a weird smell in here when I got back, but it dissipated after about 48 hours of running the A/C.

Glad you have power again.

Wierd house smell can come from warm garbage if can is in attached garage.

Our neighbor's patio roof and pieces of aluminum are in our back yard, and their plants are completely brown (salt water from small twister?). In my own yard, I have tiny gumbo limbo trees growing, about two feet tall, and they didn't budge! We weren't here for the storm, but these are definitely signs of a small twister coming through. Power back two days ago, thankfully!

I had all my potted plants in the house, and one of the desert roses now has flower buds! That is so confusing! And my plumeria pudica had a bunch of flowers blossom while inside. Makes no sense!!!

Tree maintinance, although expensive, paid off in peace of mind and reality. Only real "loss" the abundance of buds on my prized "lion-faced" hibiscus that I trimmed back, expecting a Cat. 3, on the cool, drizzly day before HI hit here as only a tropical storm. 7th day w/o power and some days in 90's with no breeze here in St. Pete, but water and sewers are fine -- so thankful for cold showers!

I'm so sorry to hear about your power situation, Irma_stpete. I only had three days without it and was getting pretty irritable (understatement). I thought
St. Pete had a lot of flooding? I remember last year you guys had a lot of flood problems after Matthew. I am down in 10a, Palm Beach Co. I tried to update my username to reflect my zone, but it wouldn't let me for some reason.

Our power situation here in Pinellas is definitely a problem for many folks! Our mayor issued a statement about it on FB that has gotten all kinds of comments. Neither he nor most of us living here are faulting the work crews, but CEO & top execs are (rightfully) getting heat for how they've handled this as far as public communication goes. Mom's house was still w/o power as of this morning - Duke Energy's self-imposed deadline wasn't met - of course. There are folks commenting on FB that they reported their outages on Sunday/Monday, yet Duke's site saying it wasn't reported until Wed., & still others saying the site shows their homes as having power when they do not!

We never lost power here, it seems, though our neighbors did & we've been hosting Mom & my son in our tiny house since we returned from shelter. Thank goodness for electricity! Very little damage in our yard & hubby & I are pretty convinced that's due to our yard being heavily protected by a 2 large oaks & several enormous seagrapes, which hubby thinks also protected the power lines from the wind.

Part of our back fence did come down, but that is of minor concern @ this point. There are still a number of city residents in shelters, I understand. Took some donations to a collection point @ a church yesterday. People need water, food, toiletries & baby & sanitary supplies.

Sydney, thanks for asking. Wind direction and location of eye inland saved our whole area from flooding.

In our neighborhood it was one house with a problem that was preventing the whole neighborhood from being able to have power. They went and disconnected that house from the grid and replaced some fuses that blew and we had power tho that one house does not and i have heard is kinda pissed fpl didn't stay around and fix their issue. FPL spends time to get the most back on before individual so that house sadly is gonna have to wait.

UPDATE Sunday midnight; power back on tonight, after 9 days off -- a record for me. Thankful. Let's see how long I can be more frugal in using it. Is wonderful to have a fridge&freezer like new - had to throw most things out so emptied and cleaned... all those things that sat in there that I would never use. Wonderful feeling. No real spring cleaning in FL, since there is no "Spring" - instead we have Pre- and Post-Hurricane cleaning.

Yard, too... going to rip out the unwanted volunteers and throw out junky potted plants that were not worth the trouble to shelter. Plans in my head to have back porch slab extended by a small deck - never was a good planting area anyway.

The most important thing our lives and our loved ones are fine and I am glad to hear the same experiences with our garden friends.

For Tampa, it is really hard without air conditioner, especially in this heat. Hope tonight is over for all of you and get the power back.

Carol, I hope your mom is okay and prayers for her health.

Irma, you are optimistic even in hardship, good for you!

The way it is, more plants more casualties....now, I got a good trim in the garden and weeks to clean. Have to think about redecorating, garden ornaments and very low plants to replace when I go to the garden sales.

Silvia

We were very, very lucky and sustained no damage or downed trees in our yard. My moms house in N. FL was fine too. She just had quite a few very tall pine trees removed and i a huge oak that they discovered was hollow inside. We lost power for a day (according to my neighbors aswe were out of town) and we lost power for about 12 hours at my moms.

Just got power back...many, many trees down, lots of flooding and power lines laying on the ground here in Sebring, we got the brunt of the storm. No gas stations open for the first several days after the storm...At one point over 90% of Highlands County were w/out power and still thousands out of power as I type...we had gust up to 115 mph for several hours, we were very lucky only had minor damage to my house and yard, many here are not so lucky!

On a brighter note, this beautiful plant ( Medinilla 'myriantha' and potted (buried pot)...shows NO signs of being damaged. It is planted on the north side of my house very close to the wall...she's so happy she survived she's blooming like crazy!!

I'm glad to here everyone is safe. I lost seven bananas, but they will grow back. Gingers are shredded too. Tons of debris, but the damage is really all cosmetic.

My gingers are full of cones...palms laid a thick layer of palm fronds on them sometime during the storm...maybe it helped. Fronds are now lining the curb...my front yard looked like a scene from a movie called 'When Palm Trees Attack'

i had liked the look of the brown fronds hanging down...not so many brown fronds up there now.

I may be a bit late to this party. We ran up to the property in Alabama "away" from the storm and had more wind there than here. Our house here is now in need of all new screening, a screen door (The lock actually sheered off) a new knob for the back door, some new gutters and all new food. LOL. All considered we were extremely lucky. We lost a lot of trees in Alabama - some from the orchard and that makes me sad, but seeing so few plants left in my garden at home was truly disheartening. It's almost like nothing was ever planted. My little nursery is now less a good 40 saplings. :-( boo. I feel defeated for now, but the reality is once I get it all cleaned up I'll have more room for new plants.

Now - what shall I get for my island planter in the front yard. Only 1 rose made it so it's a clean (weedy) slate....

Barbi, so nice to hear from you and that you and your family are fine. I am sorry about your plants but with time you will have more and better!

We also lost a lot of the landscape, have to decorate again. Every one that sees the garden are shocked, it looked like a war zone same like the trail behind us. Now that everything has been picked up, there is the chance again to make future plans for the garden...

Silvia

Boca Raton...My two Live Oak trees fared well with small branch loss and it cleared out a bunch of dead twigs. Some larger branch loss on Silk Floss trees. One papaya broke and one came down. Most of the downed trees in this area are ficus. They should all be cut down as far as I'm concerned. Frances took out many of them, Wilma took out more, and Irma took out some of the remaining.