Saturday

 

Mas Fina, our lawn care service, arrived before 8:00 the day after Helene passed through.  We lost power the night before around 9:00 p.m.

While Mas Fina picked up storm debris and mowed the grass, John and I went in search of coffee.

We came back to a yard that was all cleaned up.

We are so grateful to them.

They stacked a mound of debris just out of sight of this shot.

We found free coffee at Whole Foods. And it was delicious.

We walked to Bayshore/Causeway Boulevard. Knot on Main got flooded. The vendors were hauling away their stuff.

A jet ski punctured this fence. The water was 4 feet high here at Bayshore. We could see the water line. This house is 5 blocks from the water.

Our mayoral candidate lost one of her large signs. Our neighbor was rounding them up for her. We sent him the location for this one.

Only one panel of the driving range netting got torn. The water crossed Bayshore and flooded the range.

Later, Friday, we rode our bikes out to the causeway. It had been completely covered with water. Several of the benches had been displaced, even though they were bolted to the cement.

This bench blew across the road.

The worst damage was in the neighborhoods west of Alt. 19. Every single house that was not elevated was flooded. It looked like a war zone. All the furniture piled on the street. I didn't have the heart to take any more pictures. People were working so hard to take up carpet, flooring, furniture, bedding, etc. that I could not photograph them and their misery. It was very depressing.

This boat washed up on the causeway trail.

As the sun set on Friday, the skies were beautiful.

We had a candlelight dinner. We managed to avoid opening the fridge until 3:30 to keep the cool inside. We ate as much as we could. Cold broccoli and rice casserole, yogurt, cooked sweet potato. I kept telling myself the casserole was just like slaw.

We ate again about 7:00, thinking we'd probably have to toss everything on Saturday. We kept the freezer shut.

We went to sleep Friday night without power, but at 3:41 Saturday morning, the power came on. We hopped up and closed all the windows, and moved all the freezer contents to the fridge. We still had ice in the freezer, but the berries had begun to thaw. And we didn't want to refreeze chicken. We reset all the clocks and plugged in our devices and went back to sleep. Toby must think this is all crazy. No floor, all cramped up in one bedroom, no A/C, howling winds and driving rain, generators whirring, people walking around with flashlights outside, waking up at 3 in morning. He came in to watch, dangling a bone for comfort. We were without power for about 30 hours.

Saturday morning , John jogged while I rode alongside on the trike. Then I rode my regular bike down Victoria to the marina, before I went to the outdoor gym to exercise. The dock above is a floating dock. It is resting on the top of the pylon, about 8 feet off the water.

The gangplank got mangled.

Dock destruction at the marina. A boat on top of the bulkhead across the way.

Misplaced docks

The marina dock is ruined.

The dock at Weaver Park is missing its floating dock at the end.

Weaver Park got flooded all the way to the Pinellas Trail and beyond to the Coca Cola plant.

A pretty flower survived all the chaos.

I circled the neighborhoods that flooded in red. The blue dot is us at the top right. We were surprised that the flood waters came up Palm Boulevard to the third street. We talked to one couple we've met walking our dogs. They live on the first street. They had a foot of water in their house. Ruined furniture, wood flooring, beds, etc. She said it was sudden. The water crossed Bayshore and sped by their house up Palm within minutes. They didn't have time to do anything but watch. John's friend who lives in an elevated house on the water was also flooded. Their first floor had 8 inches of water. Their garage and two cars were ruined. The pool on the water is filled with seawater and sand.

Bottom line: it was a flooding event, not a wind event, at least for Dunedin. I can't describe what it was like riding down street after street seeing piles of furniture on the curb, some in front of multi-million dollar houses and some outside of small bungalows. I saw very few trees down and just a little bit of siding missing. We were glad to be high and dry. It saved us, at least in this type of storm, off shore and just passing by, not a direct hit. 

Thursday (Hurricane Helene)

 

Most of the day today we've been in the clear, as far as rain goes. We've had some breezy spells, but nothing major.

It will slowly move up the peninsula.

We'll probably start getting stronger winds around 4:00 p.m., about 25 mph. Rain will begin at that time too.

Heavy thunderstorms begin around 5:00. Winds will pick up to 31 mph.

By 8:00, we will be in the worst of it: winds at 41 mph and heavy thunderstorms.

Our morning was pretty nice.

Just hanging out waiting for the storm. Toby got lots of walks in anticipation of being cooped up. He's ready for the storm to be over.

Toby kept laying down on his walks. Enough already, he says.

John went for an early morning walk. I rode alongside of him on the trike.

It was a beautiful morning and afternoon. If you didn't know a storm was coming, you wouldn't be able to tell.

Wednesday

 

The plumber came this morning and stayed all day. He installed the new tub drain, pictured above.

Lots of tools.

He got the tub filler parts laid out, along with the directions. The concrete brick will be the pad he attaches the valve to before it gets incased in concrete. We all thought it was a shame to have to cover up the beautiful brass valve. One thing is for sure: that tub filler will not wobble, which is a common problem with the less expensive fillers that attach to the surface of the concrete floor. Since the plumbers were going to need a trench beneath the concrete floor for the water supply (and the tub drain), it made sense to get a higher quality tub filler with a valve encased in the concrete. 

The center of the round tub is where the drain will be.

It looks like the tub filler will not exactly line up with the corner and the center of the drain without jackhammering the outer footing. The filler will need to go a bit to the left of the center line. I've asked our designer what she thinks about that.

You can see in my sketch above that the filler is slightly out of line with the corner of the linen closet and the outside wall and the center of the tub. I don't think it will be noticeable. We'll see what the designer says.

I've placed the linear shower drain in the shower picture above. The wall is the outside front wall of the house. The current drain is in the lower left of the picture, beside my foot. The slope will go from the bottom of the picture down to the drain at the top of the picture. The plumber will have to move the drain to match up with the linear drain. I think he's going to have to do some more jackhammering, but just for the pipe that connects in the center of the linear drain. He has to remove the old copper pipes anyway that run up the wall, and they all meet in the same place. 

Our dishwasher is designed for the door to pop open at the end of the cycle to allow steam to escape. It's supposed to be more energy efficient than using a heating element. You can see the two little rectangular  prongs in the picture above that punch outward to open the door. Our door failed to open the last two washes.

I did some research and discovered it's a common problem with Samsung dishwashers. The picture above is of the solenoid that was apparently poorly designed, not strong enough to push the door open repeatedly. The redesigned part works better. Our salesperson at the appliance store who is also a neighbor warned us that Samsung dishwasher have lots of service issues. We preferred the LG, but we needed white glass to go with our refrigerator, so we didn't have much choice since Samsung is the only company with white glass appliances, at least when we purchased ours last year. 

I learned a lot about various codes from the discussion board. That helped me to troubleshoot the problem and possible solutions: turn the circuit breaker off and then on 30 seconds later to reset the computer or use lithium grease on the door prong in case it is too tight going into the door latch. I also learned that the door does not pop open on the sanitary cycle because the steam would be too hot. The most likely solution for our problem is to replace the solenoid. Luckily, the dishwasher is still under warranty, so I'm glad it failed now instead of latter. We have a service technician scheduled for next Tuesday. I sent the technician the part number just in case.

Late this afternoon, we started getting heavy rain and wind from the outer bands of Hurricane Helene. The eye will pass off to our west with landfall as a category 4 near Apalachicola, passing to the west of Tallahassee if all goes as predicted. We will get storm surge and lots of rain. I'm glad that we are high and dry. Still the winds could be over 40 mph.