Nothing like almost being a tornado target... Still Here and Just Fine !

[Hartley]

Florida weather is such a fickle thing...

Like today, A line of storms was approaching.. Ran me inside while I was getting ready for Arcadia...

Wind was blowing like a hurricane all of a sudden. My wife is talking to her brother and watching the funnel cloud bounce
right across into view in our back yard. Skipped back up and bounced down again. Missed the house and bus and then as tree limbs were flying horizontally past me at the garage door the leaves sounded like golf balls hitting the back of the trailer and bus parked in the side yard.

WWWWWHHHHOOOOOSSSSHHHH......

The funnel skipped and landed again about 1900 feet to the northeast and destroyed a mobile home park and ruptured the LP gas filling station tanks lines which is probably still venting even now. Not much left of a bunch of old trailers and bunch of cars that sat next to the highway for sale. That was where Highway 17 North and Highway 11 Split. Or about 1/4 mile away.

The power lines down the street are down and off the poles with giant oak tree limbs and parts everywhere.

They say now 4 mobile home parks destroyed here within 3 miles of me.
The Tornado was an F2 by the time got to Daytona Airport and Speedway area.
They say that approximately 50 aircraft at Daytona Airport were destroyed at Embry Riddle school.

Yikes.... I may be a day or so late to Arcadia since I can't leave here until power and roads are restored.

What fun.... Lucky I have a diesel generator in the bus, It is powering the house and bus both and two more at the ready if the first one fails.....

Dave.....
( Deland Florida, West Volusia County )

[wrench]

  Hey Dave,
  Sorry to hear about that, I am at Zephyrhills airport & we got some wind & rain, that's about all.    My brother is skydiver & plan to be at the Deland airport tomorrow.  Are the road useable? do you know the status at the airport?
            thank   wrench
  PS:  may stop at Arcadia

[Nick Badame Refrig/ACC]

Wow Dave,

I was wondering about you when I saw the 5:00 news, Glad your OK...

We were in Universal Studios when the storm hit us and the winds were tremendous for about 2 min's

then heavy rains...  F2 is pretty big...

See you this week.

Nick-

[Hartley]

Well,

The power company came out finally, cut the power to the feeder that runs the cable-tv power box up at Hwy 17 N,
Then I lost cable-modem and phone services.

They had to remove 1/2 a tree from the looks of it and restring both feeder lines for about 800 feet or so.
Just got line power back about 5 minutes ago.

Shut down the generator and pulled my cords back in. All appears OK for now. Cable came back and so far looks OK.

As for the Deland Airport, I don't have anything to report on whether Skydive Deland will be running on Tuesday.
I suspect that they will. The drop zone is directly over my house and unless they lost all 3 planes there will probably be
people jumping out of perfectly good planes. And the planes skim over my house to line up on the main runway.

From what I have heard the main roads should be open as usual with maybe some debris but this is Florida, Crap blows around all the time whenever it rains. I am sure the local news would have said if the Intertstates were closed and haven't heard anything there.

The only thing is if you have to travel through the affected counties, Just be careful of cleanup crews and tree limbs.
Oh Yeah.. The Lookie-looos .. People just go out to drive around here whenever it rains enough to make the news...

I had planned to be in Arcadia tomorrow, However since the weather put me behind on loading up it will probably be Wednesday afternoon at the earliest. Now I have to make sure that I stop for fuel just to be safe.

Dave.....

[brojcol]

DrDave:

Our prayers are with you and your neighbors.  I am so glad you were not injured and property is ok. 

[Hartley]

Still lots of Helicopters flying over the house and circling for the TV stations about 1/4 mile away to the North.

Weather is cool at 64 degrees, Cloudy with a light breeze and sprinkling rain occasionally.

I am almost ready to leave but still have a bunch of stuff to get done and load up.

[Christyhicks]

Glad you and your stuff are OK!  Something like that will always help get that old heart rate up there for a little while! 

See you in Arcadia, Christy Hicks