Roadblocks, curfews and one impatient husband

We watched as the information and images started coming out of the Keys.  US1 had been washed away in two places during the storm. There were 42 bridges on US1 alone that had to be inspected.

No water, no electricity, no fuel.

Soooo, you ain't coming in for awhile folks.

There were alot of unhappy folks about that, Tim included.  I tried to get him to show a little patience, because people lost homes and livelihoods. Perspective.

So the betting game started on when Key West would reopen.  Flights were booked/rebooked/and booked again. If we don't have some weird sort of travel alert against us by the time is all said and done, I'll be quite shocked.

One of the first steps for when we would be allowed to go back is to get our proof of property ownership/residency.  We have never got a re-entry sticker because most of the time we have a rental car.  Like an idiot, I left our boat ownership information folder sitting on the table when we left before the storm.

However, we had sufficient stuff stored away on our computers and Tim applied and got the Virtual Badge that states we are Monroe County residents. Cross our fingers that this will work.

Finally-we get the word. Monroe County is allowing residents to Key West.  (They had been opening in stages starting with Key Largo).  Code word is Rochambeau-lets go lets go lets go.

Because of curfews we got ourselves as far as hotel by FLL airport and planned to hit the check point by its 7:30am opening. (Okay, so we were a little late, but still missed the major backup.)

When you can't get information in the information era

The two days after Irma struck the keys were very nervewracking for us.  Thanks to ingenuity, SAT phones, cludged together land lines and one intrepid radio station information started trickling out.

Key Westers stated: We are fine, we've survived.  Lots of trees down, a few demolished houses and the mooring field took a hit.

In the meantime, the media and statements by our own government kept trying to paint a drastically different picture. DoD said all remaining Keys citizens will have to evacuate (like to see that go down).  FEMA said 90% of all Keys homes were destroyed.  Not. True.  Was there a presidential mandate that everything has to be posted in untrue superlatives?

Tuesday morning the notice goes out:  NOAA/NGS has released the photo aerial map of the Key West area.  I took a deep breath and started searching for Elysium.

THERE SHE WAS! FLOATING. MAST INTACT.

I let out a war whoop, scaring the hell out of Tim who was still asleep.

She was a little crooked in her slip, we could tell a piling was in bad shape, but all her lines still looked attached.  OMG OMG OMG.  Still didn't know things like, is the bilge going off, are the salon windows intact?  I pointed out that if they were broken we'd be seeing the white of the headsail in the salon where we put it.

All in all the marina looked to be in good shape.

But our baby was there--like a boss!

Now the wait starts until they allow us to go back to the Keys. Road block in effect to further notice.

Chapter 5: Watching and waiting

Next few days we stayed glued to the television, watching the buzzsaw called Irma head closer to the Keys.

Went out to get some groceries and run errands-getting odd looks from the Kansas folks because I kept saying "Thank you, and be safe."  Oops-sorry that was what we were all doing in Florida last week.

Along the northern coast of Cuba we watched as she wobbled along, constantly making weather forecasters a complete wreck.

Finally, it was the moment of truth, the Keys were going to be hit by a Category 4, possibly Category 5 hurricane.

12 years of having a boat down there, can we ease into this with a Cat 1? Oh no. Let's go Full Monty on this shit.

Tim keeps yelling for the storm to go west of Key West, I keep yelling at Tim... NO, that puts us on the WORST SIDE OF THE STORM. The dirty side of the storm, the ass kicking side of the storm.

Then the Weather Channel has to pipe up: "With this unprecedented storm, there is no 'dirty' side of the storm."

Oh, bugger off.  And on a side note: I am really sick and tired of the word unprecedented.

Night before landfall, we have mission control going on in our living room.  TV is on CNN/Weather Channel.  Laptop on the tide gauge to monitor storm surge. iPads on various webcams and anemometers around Key West.

As night approached I watched the first of the mooring field boats drift by Mallory Square.  Soon it was dark and the wind was picking up.

Around 8pm a big gust came through and the first of our webcams went out. Then another. Then another.

A friend posts on Facebook-there goes the power.

Tim goes to get some shut eye, I join him in a bit, but I'm up again with our sick dog and my own worries.

When the eyewall hit the Keys I did tear up a bit, not so much for the boat (which I was convinced was probably toast), but for the islands themselves, every last quirky key there is.  Also, the eye was going over Big Pine Key--home of the Key Deer. What will happen to them?

I woke Tim up and around 7:30am we get an alarm from our boat monitor that the boat has moved-our geofence was set for 15 feet. Shit.

One last update from my friend. Then nothing.  The tidal gauge that was creeping up went offline, the weather station at Key West Airport went off line. All cell service to the Keys was down, but it would take a few hours before word got out to everybody that contact with Key West and the rest of the Keys was non-existent at the moment.

The red arrow points to the location of our boat. Less than 15 miles from the landfall of Irma.

Chapter 4: Evacuating Hunsinger style/gas panic/next steps

We had two days at the Hard Rock.  First night, as you can imagine, was drinking ourselves silly, eating an awesome meal (truffle tuna sushi and beef negima--OMG).

CNN/Weather Channel and my iPad are going full time.  We got massages. Yes. We. Got. Massages. 

Forecasted track from Cuba has shifted to Miami/East coast area. S. Florida evacuations ordered and the downfall of civilization begins.

Hoarding of gas and water.  Price gouging. Panic. Walking Dead. You name it.

New app that was out of control useful:  gasbuddy.com  Works great until you lose cell service.

Our flight out of Fort Lauderdale was cancelled, and Tim started frantically working flights out.  Because we only have a half a tank left in our car, and that isn't going to get us to even Orlando.
Gas shortages being reported.

But, it winds up, Orlando it is.

Now, I reconfigure all of my data feeds to inform me about gas delivery.  I even go out looking for gas. Crazy. Completely crazy.  I remembered vaguely of the gas shortages in the late 70s. 

So, another bonus for Hard Rock, SECURITY. Security driving through the parking garage. We even went to check our car to make sure gas hadn't been siphoned out.

We planned on heading out very early Thursday morning, went to bed early and prepared for the next days excitement.

We hit the road before daybreak and went immediately to the closest gas station on the turnpike.  The governor kept stating that the turnpike gas stations would be kept full. GasBuddy was reporting it good.

All I can say is-WOW.  Well done Florida Turnpike Services and Florida Highway Patrol.  As you pulled off the turnpike you were channelled into a queue, once you got to the front of a line you were directed to your pump. Only vehicles could be filled, no containers.

Getting there early paid off because we had no wait.  Everybody was super nice.

Tim filling up while news crew sets up in background.
And check out the family truckster behind us.
Older gentleman all alone fully loaded with food/water/fuel.

Once again Google Maps helped us out by telling us to get off the Turnpike and onto I-95.  Evidently everybody was taking that to get to I-75 which heads to inland Georgia whereas I-95 hugs the coast.  Since we just needed to get Orlando, not an issue for us.  Saved two hours on the road! 

Watched hurricane prep as we headed North.  Never realized that the highway lights actually get pulled down via halyard and rest at the bottom of the pole.  Also, crews were going around cutting slashes into the vinyl billboards to create flowthrough.

By now some of our friends and family are bugging out and telling us to just drive home. And the path of the storm is now starting to drift back west. F*ck.

We arrived in Orlando in plenty of time for our flight that evening, so we found a day room at the hotel and chilled.

Orlando airport was chaos at EVERY airline counter except for Southwest.  Southwest RULES.

Chapter 3: Bugging Out

With one last wish and kiss for our boat we headed up north to the mainland.

We were loaded up with snacks and water, we knew we had enough fuel to get us to our first checkpoint in Fort Lauderdale.

Urgency increased with us getting out of there because latest track forecast was showing Irma to go Directly. Over. Our. Boat.  I kid you eff-ing not.

Just Mother Nature saying: Those Hunsinger kids are getting a bit cocky.  Time for a wakeup call.

With the help of Google Maps and traffic we made it up to our hotel in great time. Even the 18 mile stretch wasn't that bad.  We zoomed by a bunch of people in the Islamorada Backup (always happens-hurricane notwithstanding) by going over to the old US1 frontage road.

However, concern was growing as we started seeing not only the 40 car deep lines for gas, but the number of gas stations that were out of gas, not getting more and boarding up.

We stayed at the Seminole Hard Rock in Hollywood, FL, they, as always were fantastic as I had rearranged our reservation about five times. Southwest was also fantastic. Delta....not so much.

Hard Rock is a Cat 5 rated hotel with elevated parking garage and one of our favorite restaurants Kuro in the entire world.  Not a bad place to hunker down as we figure out what our next step was going to be.

So, at this point our week had been: Monday-Central Nebraska, Tuesday-Key West, Wednesday-Fort Lauderdale.

Time for a big, big deep breath.

...and constant forecast watching

...and second-guessing what we could more we could have done

Chapter 2: Boat prep

We arrived Tuesday in Key West on time about 5pm.  I had Tim drop me off at the boat while he ran to pick up our order at West Marine.

OMG-so hot and still.  Heat stroke imminent.

By the time Tim got back I had most of our overly complicated bimini/dodger off and my first concussion from the boom.  Tim helped me with some of the more stubborn snaps and zippers and while I started folding and stowing our canvas he worked on removing our solar panels. Our solar panels are fold down so mucho/major windage.  Also down was the grill.

We dropped our headsail in record time and have it stored in our upper seating area. 

Tim started dock line engineering while I worked on odds and ends. Extra halyards stowed. All lines up on the mast lashed down. Mainsheet tied off and stowed down in cockpit and snubbers to help keep the stress (and chafe) off the main sheet to the block. (We have a 3:1 system with main sheet off the end of the boom).

By this time we ran out of daylight and were about ready to drop, so we grabbed a good meal and wandered around the beginning of the ghost town that was Key West.  Our normal parking by the fire department was closed off to become a staging area.

So, at this point, we could see some work done, but not a lot and we felt like (at the time) some folks were being a bit blase.  I think most of the work happened in the evening when it was cooler. Not like our dumb asses, but then again we had time working against us.

Mandatory evacuations for both visitors and residents were called at this point.

Next morning we continued with what we could do, talked to some boat neighbors that were starting to feel the pinch a bit.  A lot of boats were starting to get pulled at that point.  We had an empty slip beside us, but the one past that still hadn't done anything, a fishing boat with all of its trolling rigging intact, bimini and dinghy on the foredeck.  Hope somebody showed up to do something.

The marina was doing a good job removing EVERYTHING.  Fire exstinguishers, WiFi attennas, garbage cans. You name it. We ran in to take a shower before heading up to the mainland and all the outdoor plants were inside, it was like wading through a jungle (but with a/c).

Boats that were bow out dropped anchor.  Not an option for us.

We took our normal tie off of about 5 lines and increased it to 13+ lines.  Essentially turning our slip into a mini spiders nest, we brought out the paddle board so that Tim could get off the boat.

All seacocks and vents got closed. Opened up some floor panels so that the bilge was open to the boat, picked up anything that could be a water absorber and stored it higher.  Even if we just got a couple of inches of water in the boat because of a failure, that becomes a lot heavier when you have bathmats or sails or anything else that can absorb water at that level.

Last thing we did was take pictures of the boat and I also took a few of both neighboring boats that I was a little dubious about.


Moral of story: If you have to go down to prep, or reprep, there are always more things you can do.  We now wish we had plywood to cover our deck salon windows.  Also a backup for our vents because the wind pressure could force them open.

What I DIDN'T do on my summer vacation--the Irma adventure. Chapter 1: Getting down there.

Usually, I like to do a quick: fun things I did when not on my boat posting.

Not this time.

Last week I should have been enjoying the beautiful Black Hills absorbing some Wild West history. Gold Mines, Mt. Rushmore and the like.

Nope.

We made it about as far as Nebraska when I woke up and checked the latest on Irma on Labor Day morning.

Damn. Damndamndamndamn.

Woke up Tim and said: We gotta go.  We need to get to Key West.

So, we packed up and started heading home.  While I drove Tim made arrangements to fly down and rent car, etc etc.  We called and ordered extra line and chafe guard.

I might add that in the duration of the 4-5 hour drive back home, we changed our plans about 3 times. That night, since sleeping wasn't an option, I booked us refundable hotels in about 3 different locations.  However, it was hard to know how long we'd be in the Keys and where we'd be able to leave.

Soonest we could leave was Tuesday because of the holiday we couldn't get our dogs dropped off. Oh, yeah and we were in NEBRASKA.

Tuesday:  On the ATL to Key West flight we get boarded and the ground attendant got on the plane.
"Folks, we have just been informed that all hotels are closing and you will not be able to check in."  If you are just travelling for pleasure we ask you get off the plane now, and we'll rebook you.  Mandatory tourist evacuation was to start at 7am Wednesday.

About 8 people got off the flight and the rest of us were, seriously?  Do you NOT watch the news?  However, they were able to get some standbys on that desperately needed to get to the Keys.

Key West flights are usually pretty upbeat, tipsy and chatty.  This was pretty quiet except to talk about Irma.

Moral of the story here: Act quick, have different options that you can change/cancel later. Reserving hotel rooms early was a good move.