Here There and Everywhere

Isiais Coming In

We lost power just as I was making one last entry. It returned today, Sunday, late in the afternoon. I kept notes, and I will share them with you.

We lost power around 5. It happened slowly. We would lose power for a few seconds, then it would come on again. Even the last time, when we heard the transformer outside our house SNAP!, we had hopes it would come back on. It didn’t.

Here is a blessing. The weather is cool. What really makes it hard is the lack of air conditioning, but the air is cool enough: we are comfortable. With the shutters on and locked, it is very dark, and worse, we cannot see what is happening outside except for glimpses out the corners of our shutters and the back door.  We have no internet. The phones are working, and we learn the storm is wobbling toward Destin.

Our phones are all charged, but we don’t want to use them because we may need them – urgently – if we are directly hit. No one really knows. We hear the storm has moved east of us, and later it learn that it hit Destin/Navarre more directly, but the preceding bands of lashing winds and rain hit here earlier in the day and got stronger as the day went on. We learned that the bridge over to Gulf Breeze closed at 3:30, in that old abundance of caution (which we learned is a good way to go when the bridge was badly damaged during Hurricane Sally, and we lost its use for months.)

We have lanterns. They are strong and glaring. The winds speed up and then pick up again. It gets very wild outside; the cats are freaking out, and a loud thump and brushing sound hits the north side of the house, and we know a limb is down, and maybe a power line with it. I go to look out the back door – it is covered with a piece of ballistic mesh, a requirement for houses so that occupants have a way to exit quickly if something violent happens – a treefall directly on the house, a gas explosion, a fire – anything requiring a quick exit.

We can see through the mesh, dimly. The winds are crazy: the trees are twisting, writhing, it is painful to watch. There are no lights at all, no streetlights, no human lights. But something looks weird in our far back lot, and I call AdventureMan,

“I think I see a huge tree sort of hanging horizontally, but maybe I’m not seeing what I think I see. Will you take a look?”

He peers; I point to what I think is one end and the line the maybe-tree is taking. He agrees, and we agree that to go outside to check in the midst of wildly chaotic winds might satisfy our curiosity, but might also kill us. Being people who laugh during the worst times, we speculate on the headlines, like Pensacola couple steps into backyard, killed by falling tree.” Using our wiser judgement, we stay inside.

The winds are over by nine. It is very, very quiet. No cars are going by. There are no streetlights. There are no lights in any of our near neighbors’ houses; there is a light farther up the street where someone has started up a generator. 

The stress is over, as we are exhausted. There is no electricity, no internet. We can read by lantern light, but we are tired from the stress, from all the preparations, so we turn out the light early and are asleep as our heads hit the pillows. We are thankful this day is over, and more than a little afraid of what we will find tomorrow.

October 11, 2026 Posted by intlxpatr | Adventure, Aging, Circle of Life and Death, Florida, Hurricanes, Living Conditions, Pensacola, Survival, Weather | Hurricane Isaias | Leave a comment