Facebook Memory 2017

[EssexSue]

A bit chilling. I remember a few dibbers were out there at the same time.

[Tillyfloss]

Scary times !
September brings a lot of past events to mind.
How did Irma affect you?

[EssexSue]

Originally Posted by Tillyfloss

Scary times !
September brings a lot of past events to mind.
How did Irma affect you?

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We were lucky, it turned away at the last minute. I was watching TV and talking to friends on Watsap and it was coming towards us then all the power went off. Apparently a tree had brought the power line down. That was a bit scary. Especially as a kind dibber posted exactly how a house would collapse inwards on itself if the roof went. In the end we lost some pool screens and enough roof shingles to get a new roof on the insurance. We had no power for a couple of days but we really were lucky. However surviving Irma is one of my life boasts.

[Gryff]

Ian was at the villa as well
I must have had Bay News 9 on continually
We lost about 15 pool screens that was all thankfully

[Magnolia dream]

My daughter was at our villa on her own, she made a bed in the walk in wardrobe, got food supplies and wind up torch, made sure she had loads of batteries for the radio/cd player and settled in there when it went across. Scary experience but she still laughs at her dad saying she has been in a hurricane and her dad hasn't. We got her a t.shirt saying I survived Irma.
Our Neighbours invited her to stay with them but already had a house full, they were brilliant and kept in touch with her all through it. Another neighbour offered to board up the windows.

[Chilli-pepper]

We were there at the time of Irma, we flew into Atlanta as we often do if we can’t get decent Orlando flights, we were due to stay overnight then drive down to the villa. We kept a close eye on the news and decided to make an impromptu road trip rather than drive down as we would get there the same time as Irma was due to hit.

The hotel we were at in Atlanta started to fill up with many evacuees from Miami and the coasts, people were literally turning up with their most treasured possession in tow, massive pictures, ornaments etc – there were also loads of pets and it felt like we were at a dog show.

We had many a sad conversation with people who simply did not know what they were going to go back to but still decided to evacuate – if I remember rightly most/all airlines were doing $99 air fairs to those evacuating.

Once we decided not to go down to Orlando, we kept an eye on which way Irma was due to go and made an impromptu visit to Memphis and ticked off Graceland’s from our bucket list.

We drove through Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi and Tennessee and weirdly we crossed a time zone so gained an hour– map pictures show our rote as we tracked Irma and basically drove to avoid it. Once we go down to Mobile we drove across skimming the bad weather – we could still feel some of the effects all the time from the cone, mostly places were very windy.

It felt a bit surreal at the times, on the one hand trying to enjoy ourselves, but on the other hand permanently listing to the news and weather at every opportunity with a plan to keep moving and dodging Irma. Our trip down to Orlando took 14 hours of solid driving with just restroom breaks and grab and go food and drinks (should only take around 7) – we were naturally travelling back down with everyone else who had been evacuated and going home, so was bumper to bumper along with all the construction vehicles traveling down to support.

We eventually got to the villa totally exhausted and concerned about what we would turn up to but thankfully there was electric, and very little damage to the villa.

[pandagirl]

We were staying at Saratoga Springs during Irma and my FB memory was our pathetic attempts at Target to prepare for the curfew - apparently we thought hurricane essentials were mainly Mangoritas, red wine, fried chicken and potato salad! We ended up sleeping through the worst of it and didn't fully appreciate the damage that had been caused until we were released from the Disney bubble and took a drive to Celebration - we spent a lot of time on social media reassuring people back home that we were fine.

[EssexSue]

Originally Posted by pandagirl

We were staying at Saratoga Springs during Irma and my FB memory was our pathetic attempts at Target to prepare for the curfew - apparently we thought hurricane essentials were mainly Mangoritas, red wine, fried chicken and potato salad! We ended up sleeping through the worst of it and didn't fully appreciate the damage that had been caused until we were released from the Disney bubble and took a drive to Celebration - we spent a lot of time on social media reassuring people back home that we were fine.

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I was really pigging out on the M and M caramels, if I was going to die I wasn't going to diet!

[Gryff]

Ian was eating all the crap I don’t let him buy like jerky ,vacuum packed pepperoni peanuts he did take advantage of one of the neighbors spare generators as they have a whole house generator and the bbq for a couple of days when he had no power

[sky13]

I definitely remember this and the thread with Dibbers who were out there that time!

Remember being out there and slowly starting to hear more and more news about Irma. At first there was a lot of "oh, it'll be fine, it's nowhere near Orlando", and then it became "well, it looks like it's coming towards us, but it will be OK", and then it started looking more and more worrying.

Originally had planned to stay through Irma and had prepped to stay there (bought things like water, cereal bars, snacks, battery packs) but when my friend who lives there told me that they had decided to evacuate and just drive North I decided I should probably try to get out of Orlando before the hurricane too. And even more so when MCO and all the parks announced closures.

This was the trip that made me actually rather like United, because they offered travel waivers to let people change their flights without any additional cost. Remember calling United at some crazy hour (past midnight after I got back from the parks) and getting a great agent who got me rebooked onto a flight out the morning MCO closed.

And Disney was fantastic as well - had booked room only with them. When I went to talk to the front desk at Pop, I was told that they were letting people either cut their stay short (at which point they would refund any unstayed nights), or let people extend their stays for a discounted rate...