Hurricane Ian went over my house 2 months ago at 155 mph and did an estimated $50 billion of damage to Florida. The aluminum framed pool cage I once had around the pool deck that attached to my house is literally gone. Enough roofing shingles were torn away that given the age of the roof, needs to be fully replaced. Until I can get a reputable contractor to do the work, I have a temporary "blue roof" made of fiberglass reinforced plastic sheeting. In round numbers I probably incurred $40k of damages. I, and most of my neighbors, were lucky. We did not get water inside our homes. I live 100 yards from a salt water canal system with direct connection to the Gulf of Mexico and less than a mile from open water. We had sea water up to the lip of our front doors....and then it receded before coming in. The storm surge here was estimated at 12 feet above mean sea level. I've dumped around $200 of chemicals into my pool to clear it up with no luck - it's an impenetrable dark green foreboding pond. Turns out the crap in the sea water, which flooded the pool, is almost impervious to simple pool bleaches and algaecides. You have to drain it all out, power wash it, acid wash it, and then fill it with clean fresh water and start over. The huge ornamental Chinese Orchid tree in my front yard was completely trashed. After sawing off all the broken limbs all that was left was the bare trunk and two bare branches - not a single leaf remained. Two months later that bare stump of a tree has exploded in new branches and leaves such that you can't even see the bare wood any longer. Miraculously, no windows were broken, and I don't have superior "hurricane windows". In fact, hardly any windows broke anywhere in the neighborhood. I find that remarkable. For the past 2 months, I've had 6 foot high piles of storm debris collected and piled up on the lawn along the road in front of my house. Most of neighbors the same. Last week the city finally got around to picking up some but not all of it. The grass under the piles is now dead. I estimate I've filled up over 100 extra large black plastic bags with storm debris and hauled them out to the street. Almost done with that phase. There's been a sour funk in the air outside for a while now that they say will dissipate. It's from all the grunge in the salt water surge that flooded the are. Meanwhile there's an endless parade of flim-flam roofing contractors running around trying to soak up some of that hurricane insurance money. It's hard to know who to trust. I'm going to wait until January before getting serious about engaging a roofing contractor. To be clear, I consider myself very fortunate under the circumstances. Against this backdrop, I continue to work on Tortuga Audio matters, albeit slowly, and with frequent interruptions. So it goes.
