Vero has been hard-hit these past two days by the Tropical Storm Fay. I even closed my store in Sebastian just to make sure I didn’t have to worry about wading in, which is rather difficult for me. I hate not working! The schools of Indian River County were closed yesterday, and they were intrepid enough to open today. I decided I wasn’t going to get enough customers in this rain to warrant my opening.
I took a drive in later this afternoon to check on the security there and all is well. Unlike many businesses and homes in the area, we are high enough and have decent enough drainage (at least for the time being) to keep the water where it belongs. I’d worried I would have some flow through the back door, but no problems there, thank goodness.
Most of the difficulties arises from driving from one location to another. Many areas hardest hit have little to no sewer systems to move the water away from them. One community, Tradition, is largely underwater, and that is a very new community! The damages there will be easily in the hundreds of millions alone. Many of my favorite customers live in Barefoot Bay, which was hit by a tornado last night, destroying nine homes. I’ll have to wait to see what happened to them. Port St. Lucie, in St. Lucie County, is devastated. People are being forced to wade through waste from backed up septics; they are being warned not to do so because of snakes, alligators and fire ants in the waters. I’ve seen news reports of kids biking, many people boating to their mailboxes. People are being ferried to and from their homes in dump trucks. One school district has their entire bus yard literally swamped to the engines with water and muck.
Here in Pointe West, we’ve measured the rain levels each day. From 5pm the 18th, to 5pm the 19th we received 9-3/4 inches of rain. From 5 yesterday to 5 today, another 3-1/2 inches and still more to come as Fay turns around and heads to the Florida panhandle… or so the weather gurus tell us. My dogs are forlorn. My youngest is living under our bed and hating every time I tell her she has no choice but to go outside. Such pitiful faces I’ve rarely seen! We all come in looking (and smelling) like drowned rats, and there just aren’t enough towels in the world to get us dry enough.
I’m sure I’m not the only one to say it, “I’m really sick of the rain now!” Lake Okeechobee, which has been drought laden these past 2 years, will largely be caught up by this downpour. Current weather reports seem to show Fay has stalled just outside of Melbourne (north of Sebastian) and the bands stand to drench us for the next few days as she takes her sweet time heading north and west. I suppose when I live through my first hurricane, I’ll be really uptight, but right now I’m feeling like I did when I was up north and going through a snow squall. I wonder what this would have translated into snow-wise?
I’m all for ending the drought. I’d just rather it wasn’t in one day. Or two. God? Are you listening?
