Hurricane Irma and Damage to Our Rv

Blairsville, Ga (high 75, low 46)

In case you haven't been following my blog, you can catch up HERE

We are now back in Georgia after a very hot and tiring trip down to the Keys.  We felt we should go down to inspect our Fifth Wheel and boat, and to see if we could salvage anything. We left the beautiful mountains and the cool weather to go to the heat and destruction in the Florida Keys.

We (the cats included) were exhausted after our trip and were so glad to be back in Georgia. 

We stayed with my cousin and her wife who have a home in Key West. Thankfully they only had  minimal damage.  They had evacuated to North Carolina and just got back a day or two before we arrived.  They were generous enough to invite all of us (kitties too)  to stay with them, even though they were still trying to get their house and property back to normal after their evacuation.

The eye of the hurricane struck Cudjoe Key (where our lot is) and spared Key West from the worst damage, and was lucky to have been on the "good" side of the storm.  Key West  lost a LOT of trees and some were real heart breakers, but for the most part they did pretty well. There is a lot of clean up to be done, but they are doing their best to open back up for tourism.  Too many jobs depend on tourism and the people need to get back to work.  More and more restaurants and bars are opening up every day.  As of October 1st, Key West is officially open for tourism.  A little beaten and battered for sure, but open for business.  Cudjoe, Marathon, Big pine and the lower keys are NOT ready for tourism and it will be a while before anyone even wants to go to that part of the Keys.

We didn't do any sightseeing in Key West and only went to the places we needed to go. The heat was so overwhelming that it sapped every bit of your energy.  I remember why we don't go to the Keys in the summer.

On our drive  down from Tampa we didn't see too much damage until we left the mainland and got into the Keys. The further south in the Keys we drove, the more damage we saw.  It was bad in the upper Keys, but once you entered Marathon, it kept getting worse and worse. The hardest hit was Marathon, Big Pine, Ramrod, and Cudjoe Key.  The eye of Hurricane Irma made landfall on Cudjoe Key, but I think Big Pine Key had even worse damage than we did in Cudjoe Key.

The first days and weeks were bad for those who had not evacuated. They were not allowing anyone back into the Keys until they could inspect the bridges, and clear power lines, boats and debris off the roads. There was no power, no running water, no sewer, no hospitals, no fuel and no police, except the few that volunteered to stay.  There were a lot of emergency management folks from FEMA, the military, the insurance companies, Red Cross and many more. There were linemen from about every state in the country along with about as many tree companies from various states.  They were a huge blessing and without all their help, it would have never gotten done.  There was free water and ice being given out and even free meals. You could get medical help, tetanus shots and there were even free veterinary clinics, which of course I particularly liked.

The electric didn't come back on for days and then just a little bit at a time. The upper Keys got their power back fairly quickly, but  Cudjoe Key only got electric (and air conditioning) back yesterday, which was over three weeks after the storm!

We made a quick stop at our lot to survey the damage in person.  We needed to drop the cats off at Anne and Jan's so we couldn't stay long.  It was even more devastating than we thought to actually see it in person.  We had seen pictures, but nothing prepares you for the real thing.

This is Spanish Main Drive.  It is the road that leads into our community and the hurricane devastated the power grid.   You can tell why it took three weeks to restore the power.  

This is the underside of our fifth wheel.  The emergency responders go around to check for dead bodies and mark the homes with the orange paint. Fortunately, ours had a 0 in the bottom part of the X which indicated no one was found inside.   :)

When I first saw this picture, of the orange paint for some reason it really hit me hard and made me cry.   It made it really hit home, I guess. This is the bottom of our fifth wheel.

Since our trailer was so spread out, I guess they felt the need to paint ours twice, once on the bottom and once on the other side.  This is on the living room slide.  You can see the microwave sitting on the top. We never could figure out how it got up there, but two shell magnets were still stuck to the sides.  Those are two of the items we were able to salvage.  

You can see the travel trailer upright next to ours. It was moved a little and the hurricane anchors were pulled out of the ground, but it appears to have survived.  Of course we don't know if any water got inside.

We feel certain a tornado caused our damage because of the extensive damage to ours and not to the others around us.  Hurricanes always spin up tornadoes. One picture I took shows where our frame was actually bent apparently from the tornado.

This is the front of our fifth wheel.  It did not touch the trailer next door.  His car even seemed to be fine.

We dropped the kitties off and then Anne and Jan insisted on coming back with us to help us retrieve anything that we could. They had already spend half the day helping friends on Ramrod Key and I'm sure going back out in the heat was the last thing they wanted to do.  

One man in our community actually died from heat stroke and another was hospitalized for several days.  You could not drink enough water to make up for that heat. We all felt the effects of the heat and could easily have gotten heat stroke.

Our community is a mixed use resort with high rise homes on stilts like you see here.  Midrise, old trailers and rv lots.  There are 659 lots here and I didn't see even one without some sort of damage.  Some damage was obviously worse than others. 

We found some of our things in the debris, some water damaged, some broken and some stuff was actually good.  

If you look carefully, underneath the slide is our bent power pedestal.

This is one of the hurricane anchors Al installed before we left in June.  He rented an auger that drilled down into the very hard coral rock.  It was next to impossible to drill through and poor Al nearly killed himself doing it.   The winds pulled them right out of the ground.  The chains held though.

This post is long enough so I will stop here and come back soon with more of the story.  Yes, we did find the boat.  Sort of.

To end the post on a positive note:   Meet Mulligan.  She is Anne and Jan's pup.  She cheered us all up every day.  

Decisions to Make

Blairsville, Ga (high 80, low 58)

Things are a mess in the Keys.

Fortunately, Key West was spared the brunt of the storm, thank goodness.  Key West is such a beautiful and special town, full of history, large old trees and beautiful architecture and although there is damage, it could have been worse.  My cousins house is fine.  No flooding.  A tree or two and some fencing down.  They still do not have consistent power, water, or flushable toilets so they have no urgent need to rush back down.


Information is trickling in, little by little.  Things are not good.  Electricity and cell service is very very limited.   There is limited or no sewer service.  Running water is limited and needs to be boiled but with no electricity, that's an issue.  We did find out that our neighbor Randy who rode out the hurricane, was unharmed and had made his way to the mainland for much needed supplies.

Up until yesterday, most residents were  still being kept out to make room for first responders to remove downed power lines, trees across the roads, washed out roads and to make sure the 46 bridges were safe.  Residents were getting angry.   Many people have damaged property that needs to be secured from the elements and they are very anxious to return home. People are worried about looting. Some people have run out of money and have no food or gas.  Food, water and fuel is still very limited in the Keys.   The powers that be finally relented and as of today have opened up the Keys to residents only and a curfew is strictly enforced.   I have even heard that they are now allowing open carry,  which means you can carry a weapon and not conceal it.

We have two Aircraft carries offshore in Key West proving help, along with the National Guard.   I've seen pictures of Chinook helicopters landing in the grocery store parking lots.  Military is out in force cleaning up.  They are sleeping on cots wherever they can find a place.  God bless them all for helping.  The temperatures are stifling.  Much of the shade has been destroyed and of course there is no air conditioning.


We  already knew our RV had been destroyed from the aerial photos we had seen, but Friday we got some taken from the ground.

To say it was a shock was an understatement.

Most of us have seen news reports from different catastrophes where they paint the red "X"s on property after they check for bodies. These marks identify the agency that inspected, the date and time and on the bottom the number of fatalities. A big "0" means no fatalities.

Someone went around in a golf cart taking video of each street. It was pretty fast but we were able to identify our lot and rig.  Oh the video, you could hear them comment "oh my God" when they saw ours.

Sorry for the bad quality of these pictures.  They were screen shots from a video.  The white Wildwood that is still standing is not ours.   Ours is the pile of rubble to the right of it.

For some reason, seeing the orange marks on our RV hit me really hard. It's something you see on the news all the time, but man, it really hits home when it's on your home.  The furniture sitting outside got to Al more than me.  I never liked that furniture.  haha

The following picture shows it from another angle. This is the bottom of the RV.  More orange writing

We do not know why our RV came apart like it did, when others did ok.  We think it was mostly because ours was hit broadside with Cat 4 winds with nothing to buffer the wind.  Our lot is near the open water with a row of tall stilt houses as the only thing that is in front of us. The stilts allow all the open air to rush right onto ours broadside. The open air that always gave us such a nice afternoon breeze was our downfall.  We are guessing the broadside wind found an opening and tore it apart. Perhaps we buffered the Wildwood next door because it looks to be in pretty good shape.   The stilt houses did fine, but those stilts did not block any wind from hitting us.  Perhaps it was a small tornado, but whatever it was, it did a good job on our RV

We have filed a claim with Progressive. I am so thankful we have Progressive because as a former claim adjuster, I know them to be fair and professional.   We even got a call from USAA since they referred us to Progressive since they don't write full coverage on rv's in Florida. They offered their assistance if we had any issues with Progressive.   A team of CAT adjusters will be in the Keys as soon as they are allowed.   We have $15,000 in additional coverage for contents. We should be ok there but I don't think they won't cover anything outside the rv. Unfortunately the contents will be depreciated depending on the age.  Now, we need to start making a list of everything in the RV.

We have no more info on the boat other than a picture of the storage lot where it was located.  We do not know which is our boat.  Hopefully it is not a total loss.  Fortunately, it is also insured with Progressive.

So what do we do now?  Go down and try to salvage some of our things?  Deal with no power or air conditioning, no water, sewer, cell service?   We don't think much from inside the RV will be salvageable, but who knows. We are hoping to find our scuba tanks, bikes and stuff like that.

The thought of going down with no AC is not something we want to do. We would prefer power was restored so that our one night we have to spend there will not be miserable. Will it be worth the trouble for the amount  we are able to salvage?  We just don't know.

 There will be no hotels available but fortunately my cousin offered us the use of their home in Key West. I think they are inclined to wait for the AC to be restored before they go back.  They were nice enough to offer us the use of their home even before they get back, but I doubt we will do that.

To add another problem, there is a new potential hurricane heading along the same path as Irma. The models are showing it as a Cat 3 and heading towards the same islands that were decimated the last time.  No one knows where she will go, but we sure do not want to be in the Keys trying to evacuate for another storm.

So, that is our dilemma.  Since people are heading back today, I'm sure a lot more information will be coming out.  We will give it a few days and make a decision.

We have been watching videos of the destruction in the Keys. It's heartbreaking.

Here are a few pictures of our beloved Florida Keys from the past. The Keys will recover and be the beautiful place we love again.  Many people assume we won't be going back to the Keys anymore.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  It is our winter home, we love it there and we will be back.

Would you believe, this tiki hut survived?  A little windblown I'm sure.

Happier days on our patio.

Some the decorations we had that we hope we can find.

I really want to find my wonderful bike.