Frances: Rockin' Like a Hurricane

These are some pics from my house and around the neighborhood the morning after Hurricane Frances. A weak storm, but I guess the fact that it STOPPED MOVING once it made landfall provided enough of a sustained force to do a bit of damage.

Here's our pool. It's very full.

Tree in the backyard outside my room, snapped like a matchstick.

A huge limb of the ficus tree nextdoor that splintered. It's fortunate only that branch split off, or I'd have had a 60' friend in my bed.

A better shot of matchstick tree + broken ficus.

Here's the ficus edge behind our neighborhood the development behind us put in. It used to be a harmless 10-12' deal, but grew to around 40. Luckily when some trees toppled, they hung just high enough to not destroy the barn.

Our cable box is under this mess. Luckily, it was unharmed! The fence did not fare as well, however.

The neighbors lose some neat-looking exotic tree.

Again, the neighbors lose another tree. This species went down easily all over the city, so obviously it's a big wuss. I just like the way the trunk is all violently twisted.

A lovely walk down the neighborhood.

These dramatic pictures are fun. All over the city, huge banyan and ficus trees like this toppled, ripping up enormous sections of sidewalk and privacy walls.

Oddly, the wind somehow sheared off the branches, but only on the lower segment of this tree. I guess since those were larger and heavier, we can get a lesson in physics as to how big a tree limb needs to be to tear off in 100-110 mph winds.

Not too much damage at the home base. Sunshine state my ass.

All in all, Frances was fairly obnoxious. Instead of whipping through over the course of a few hours, it just sat over the Bahamas (poor bastards) and belted us with winds and rain for around 36 hours. The worst part was that we lost power at about 10am the morning of the day it hit--at least 6 hours before we even had any wind or rain! A true testament to the competence of FPL. Then came the 36 hours of excitement, followed by 8 days of no power and 8pm citywide curfews.

Piece of cake, piece of cake. Bring it on, 2005!