Just over a week after Hurricane Helene brushed past the Tampa Bay area on its way up through the Florida panhandle, Hurricane Milton came across the Gulf from the east and made landfall just south of Tampa Bay, leaving a massive trail of destruction in its wake. We may have dodged this year’s “I”-named hurricane …
Just like when Irma visited the Tampa Bay area back in 2017, Hurricane Milton knocked out our Spectrum cable internet/phone service for the past 5 days. I’m finally back online and finishing up my network recovery. Check back later for my storm recap.
Did you know that “I” names for hurricanes are the most-retired storm names? Having lived through Ivan (2004), Irene (2011), Irma (2017), and Ian (2022) and they passed near or through Florida, I can believe it. Now it looks like Idalia could be added to that list. Early on, it looked like Idalia was going …
It’s been five years since the last big hurricane (Irma) came though the Tampa Bay area and early in the week, as we watched the forecast track, it looked like we were going to get slammed by a category 4 storm, Hurricane Ian. We got lucky … soooo very lucky. Unfortunately, our neighbors to the …
With Hurricane Dorian threatening to cut across the state of Florida, we weren’t sure our annual Labor Day vacation to Walt Disney World was going to happen. But as it turned out the storm curved away, up the eastern coast of the state and stayed away from Orlando. As a result, we had a really …
Continue reading ‘Labor Day Weekend 2019 at Disney: Star Wars and Dorian’ »
A year ago we were bracing for the approach of Hurricane Irma. We had installed impact windows in 2008 and replaced the overhead garage door in 2015 but had never gotten around to replacing the entry doors. So last year at this time we were boarding up those doors with plywood: But today, the impact-rated doors we …
We’re finishing up hurricane-proofing this summer by finally replacing all the exterior entries with impact-rated doors. We had our impact windows installed back in 2008, and replaced the overhead garage door in 2015, but last year’s close call with Hurricane Irma reminded us we still needed to replace the doors. Since we’re getting new doors, we also …
Continue reading ‘Kwikset SmartCode 916 Touchscreen Electronic Deadbolt’ »
We had plenty of warning that Hurricane Irma was coming, but the uncertainty of when, where, and how bad continued to be the wildcard right up until the last minute. Whereas at the beginning of the week it looked like Irma was going to skirt up the east coast of Florida now it seemed that …
The blog is back! We survived Hurricane Irma and only lost power for 19 hours (it was back Monday night, thanks Duke Energy!). However, my Spectrum TV/internet/phone service was down for almost 5 days!! It finally came back up tonight so windracer.net is back online. More on my experience with Irma to come …
With the devastation in Houston from Hurricane Harvey barely two weeks old, here in Florida we’re bracing for Hurricane Irma, a Category 5 storm with 185MPH winds: We had our impact windows installed back in 2008, and replaced the overhead garage door in 2015, but still hadn’t gotten around to the entry doors. Trying to …