Every year there is at least one storm projected to come right for us. Thankfully, most of them swerve out to sea and don't bother anybody. Once in a blue moon, a storm is forecast to hit the east coast of Florida and panic sets in! Roads are clogged with evacuations, shelters are open and Jim Cantore from the Weather Channel shows up at Jacksonville Beach (this is never a good sign)!
The last time a hurricane came close enough to cause a bunch of chaos was Hurricane Floyd in 1999. One year, I think it was 2004, we had several give us a hard time (Bonny, Charley, Frances and Gaston). Since then, we've been "brushed" a few times but more recently, we've had a direct hit by tropical storms. I consider tropical storms to be mini hurricanes. The only difference is the wind speed. Last year was Tropical Storm Beryl. We lost power with that one, although, if a semi drives by my house really fast we lose power!
At the end of last week, we had Tropical Storm Andrea pay us a visit! She was the first named storm of the season. To tell you the truth, I didn't pay much attention this time. They weren't forecasting a particularly gnarly wind storm, just lots of rain. I wasn't even alarmed when I saw this image on our local weather radar:
The night it was supposed to cross right over Jacksonville, it rained off and on. If it was windy outside, I didn't hear it and our power stayed on the whole time. Dan and the girls went to bed at their normal times. Nathan and I stayed up late watching a movie. At one point, we heard a loud noise outside. It sounded like a transformer had blown. We both went to the front door to check it out. We even went outside. Nothing. There wasn't even any noticeable wind.
So, imagine my surprise when I went to get in the car to go to work the next morning and saw this:
The car insurance does not cover side windows or the back windshield. What??? How was that allowed to become a rule? We called around and can have the window replaced for about $460. Our deductible was $500 so either way, we would have had to pay for it ourselves.
As we were cleaning up the glass and tree fragments, we noticed something else....take a closer look:
So now, we are checking with the homeowners insurance because to have the frame replaced will be an extra expense and probably take it significantly over the $500 mark. Sigh.
So now we are down to one vehicle (again). They can't fix the window until at least Wednesday. This means Dan has to take me to work...take the kids to camp, and then go to work himself...just to do it all over again in the opposite direction to pick everybody up.
So you see, my friends, there are some definite drawbacks to living in Florida! The weather is not the only thing on my list of reasons why I don't like living in Florida....but it's in the top 5!
Nathan and Olivia made their own mess at the other end of the table! Yes, that's a 
We made "A's" for her name! I wrapped each one in a 
