It's wasn't supposed to hit here. - Dennis has a very far reaching arm and is slapping we Floridians around. I went to bed last night late watching the weather, scanning Weather Underground, and thinking that I wouldn't need to worry much about this monster storm which sadly spent more than seven hours over Cuba.
I was wrong.
At some point shortly after six this morning the roar of wind and rain woke me from my dreams of candy land.
Something hit the roof and the side door of the house. The sound of the wind reminded me of the hurricanes from last year.
My immediate thought was for the forty orchids I had sitting out by the lake under a large oak tree. Yeah I know, what a strange first thought. But it's a passion of mine.
Anyway, when I opened the side door I had trouble because of a large tree limb tossed carelessly aside by Dennis. Further out the door I spotted a large tree some twenty plus feet from the house where it now lies on the ground.
Walking between the fallen tree and our large bougainvillea I discovered all but one of the orchids I had sitting in plant stand were in the mud and water. Thankfully the majority which I had hanging from assembled line of Shepherd's Hooks and pipe were fine, though battered.
I had to search through pulls of dark water and mud for a couple of young plants blown out of their pots. One Phalaenopsis I'm watching for a friend on our Church mission trip was also out of the pot and in the mud.
Needless to say it was messy. They are all inside now, here and in the Church youth building.
Discovered another two very large Cedar trees at lake edge broke near the base and now in the lake. That should be a fun clean up.
Several tornadoes touched down in the area and I'm thinking this damage might be related somehow.
Wind right now is really gusty. More so than I would expect. The wind map for where Dennis is right now shows the tropical force winds and hurricane force winds hundreds of miles away to the South. In the picture to the left, I'm in the circled area.
So this is rather surprising. Just goes to show you can never tell with these beasts.
Update:
It appears the tree damage is likely the result of a tornado touching down, or skimming the tree tops. An officer spoke this afternoon with my father (the officer got his car stuck on the Church property while trying to drive across it) and a tornado touched down a little ways from here doing some damage to a building. Under one tree there's a large limb that is driven into the ground and sticking nearly straight up. My pop said the top of the tree looks like it's been in the spin cycle of a washing machine. Haven't had a chance to look at it myself yet.Kind of makes since that it was a tornado. You could draw a near straight line connecting all the trees that are damaged on one side of the property.
Update: 2005-07-10.
Our prayers go out to those hit by this storm today. Thankfully, from what I'm hearing it could have been worse. The next few days will tell just what this storm wrought.
