When we heard that Hurricane Irma was shifting from direct hit on the east coast to west coast, we learned that we are now actually on the wrong side of the storm.  At that point we started to install hurricane shutters on west side of the house which we did not do for Hurricane Wilma, 2005.

It took almost one week to prepare for Hurricane Irma, removing lose objects, filling containers for drinking water, filling gas (car and containers), and securing some of  the trees.

So, Hurricane Irma made first landfall in Cudjoe Key, September 10, 9:10 am as Category 4 and then made second landfall in Marco Island, 3:42 pm as Category 3.  We lost power for 16 hours starting Sunday night at 10:20 pm, September 10.
 It was windy but we knew that Port St. Lucie would only have 50-70 mph wind, enough to knock out the services.  We started a generator early Monday morning to support refrigerators, Wi-Fi, TV and RV in case we need AC in RV.

The cleanup efforts took the entire day on Monday, cutting and removing falling down trees, standing up and tying up the trees we may be able to save, cleaning the mess at back yard which is Westside of the house. Now I understand why being on east side of the storm is bad situation.

The crop of Banana trees were pretty much taken out as we lost about 12 of them.

When I was wondering how long it would take to get the power back to the house, one FPL truck drove by so I waved him down.  “We lost power” I said. The driver smiled at me and said:” Everybody lost power” I was so happy to see the truck.  I knew that they were working hard to get power back to all of us.  Before the storm, all kind of utility trucks from Michigan, Texas already arrived in Port St. Lucie and ready to go to work knowing that this would be not only good for the power company, the customers, and more money in their pockets with all the overtime they would be putting in.