[jingram058]

My pick up is electricity. It has been restored to my house in the aftermath of major hurricane Ian. It makes ALL the difference. I have been told that because our neighborhood is just across the street from Gulf Coast Hospital, we are on what is called "the hospital grid". I now believe it, as we have power when so many do not. We have air conditioning, washer/dryer, lights, YouTube TV, Amazon Prime, wifi, email, internet, all the things we take for granted. Our house made it through this, the roof, the pool cage, the big oak tree in back. The only damage is our wooden fence in the back yard is destroyed; tossed around like kindling. It was flattened by Irma, rebuilt, and now gone. There were a million shingles in the yard from other houses, and a million leaves from the oak tree, shrubs, and bushes. We live between US 41 and I-75. This was the mother of all hurricanes. We know now that storm surge simply isn't a problem for us where we are, but across US 41 is where the devastation begins. Along Fort Myers Beach, Estero Island, downtown, Whiskey Creek and along the Caloosahatchee River into Cape Coral, and the islands of Sanibel, Captiva and Pine Island, it looks like Hiroshima or Nagasaki at the end of WW2, just absolute destruction. We are so fortunate where we live here in the Brookshire community. I was in the Navy for 26 years...typhoons in the Pacific, hurricanes and superstorms in the Atlantic...wildfires in California...I could go on and on. Hurricane Ian was by far the worst tropical storm I ever went through. In the eyewall, with winds well over 100 mph, it sounded like a freight train. I thought the house was going to shake apart. But we made it. And day 3 after, we have running water and electricity and all that goes with that. Still only a few gas stations and other places open, with lines that go for blocks. But we made it. My pick up is electricity.