Fascinating Hurricane Story

As the wife of a builder, I was highly interested in this story and thought I would share. Though it has been on lots of shows as well as on many online news sites and blogs so you may have heard about it. But look at that ONE house? The entire neighborhood in Gilchrist, Texas was flattened by Ike, roughly 200 homes. Yet this one stood. So who can't help but wonder why?

This family's home was destroyed by Rita in 2005. So they rebuilt at the same site in 2006 and built it to withstand a category 5 storm. Seems to have worked pretty well! Though as I research this a bit more, I have learned that they still had a lot of internal water damage and this home is uninhabitable. Considering the area, that doesn't seem surprising nor a failure though, don't you think? I can't help but wonder how this builder and/or the structural engineer are going to prosper after this? If YOU were going to rebuild in this area, who would you hire? Pretty exciting for that team!

Sadly, this family is devestated by their area and having to endure yet a second major loss. They were only able to move back into their home last April. They love the beach and said their home may still be a loss because of the massive interior damage. I personally can't imagine any view being worth all this. They are unsure at this point if the county will let them move back into this area since it is so badly devestated and they are now in yet another rental until they can decide how to move forward.

I didn't stumble upon any article that talked to the builder or engineer (okay, I didn't look that hard so it could be out there) but again, I'm excited for them as I do hope they prosper from obviously seeing their extra efforts pay off for this client. They must be very proud and deserve to be. Too bad water can still get in though . . . seems the efforts still aren't truly good enough for mother nature.

Welcome to the swamp!

Well, we survived Fay! You think I joke with the 'swamp' comment but really, I do live in a swamp! We are in a very rural part of Central Florida and we are surrounded by flood zones. The rumor is that gators wander from pond to pond (though I've never seen one ) and the bugs and frogs are louder than you can believe and we have no street lights or paved roads or public water. Deer wander through our property, you may have seen the lost Donkey post last month and horses and goats are everywhere! When I say 'rural', I mean it and we love it! It's quiet, we have space to play and do what we want and the area is full of laid back families.

We are 12 miles west of 95 so pretty darn close to the coast and when you saw the outer bands of the storm over Brevard County, we were not having fun. Now, those coastal areas are in a mess and there was major damage there. We are just in "OMG, this storm is NUTS" mode, though you will see below that some of our neighbors aren't so relaxed at this point. As the storm passes, all the water from those of us up higher will drain toward the lake and lower areas so unfortunately, these people are not done with this storm.

We bought 5 acres two years ago then built and moved in last year. We are 1 mile off of a huge lake, Lake Harney. SO many people asked us why we picked our lot, why not in a more easily accessible area or why not on the lake! Well folks, now I have pictures to show you. Of this entire area, about 90% of the lots are in flood zones. Ours is not. When I pulled MLS listings and sorted through them, 8 or 9 out of 10 listed always were thrown in the trash because it was wetlands every time I searched. There were areas we liked better but this was a 'set in stone' rule from my builder husband. We are "high and dry", but we still built in a swamp!

So we certainly got wet! I'll show you some of the houses around me first. All are within 1-3 miles of our house. Welcome to my local tour!!!

This house is a few lots from us.

This nice driveway is maybe 10 lots from us. That would be a 10 year old standing in this homeowner's only access to their new home. This family is not the homeowner, they were out touring and taking pictures just like me!

These houses are on the lake and here is the reason why we personally could not build here. The stress these families must feel when a storm is coming is not worth any view, in my opinion! These houses also were not in the bad area as obviously I could get to them. Most of the road is flooded and I can't imagine what those homes look like. The newer homes out here have learned and are built up higher but many homes are like these.

This is tough to make out but what looks on the left like the top of a car with no body, is what you see. The body is completely under water.

See his boat?

This is tough to see but you are looking down his driveway, through his carport and onto Lake Harney. This is right off of the lake and is a private airport that 18 homes have access to. They fly really cool (but I'm sure dangerous) planes with fun canvas looking wings and bright colors. Well, here is their runway!!! In a couple days I'm going to show you a new hanger they are building that has a secret door on it--it is so cool!!!!

Here's part of the road that the houses on the lake are on. Wonder how they are getting home? That's my Carter waving Hi, he went touring with me!

Now I end the tour with my property. This is from the road. You can kinda see my house behind all this.

Here is my pond. I'm actually liking this! It is a cool pond but not this big! It is stocked with Cat Fish and Blue Gill and the boys can't wait until the fish get bigger so they can go fishing. Jim usually rides his 4wheelers in a loop around the pond. You can see the grass inside the pond, well that is usually the outer edge. I wish it would stay like this!When we built, Jim built the house up quite tall. The property slopes and from the other side, it is what he refers to as "4 courses" high. I don't know if I got that right but I think that means 4 blocks of concrete high. It seemed excessive but these days make me realize how smart my husband is! Our pool house is lower as well as the barn and garage. We had to drain the pool 5 or 6 times to prevent it from overflowing so we still have some vulnerable spots but basically, if our house floods this entire area is a disaster. It was a nice feeling knowing water wasn't coming through any doors for sure. Our driveway is a bit fun too! Someday we plan to extend the concrete and days like this make us realize why we need to . . . It's just muck today!

I hope you enjoyed my little Fay hits rural Central Florida tour! This has been a long week so at least I have this to remind me of the craziness we have had. News reports said we got 12" of rain within 24 hours and it rained much longer than that so it was quite the downpour and our first storm here. It is late Friday now, it is still raining but it seems Fay has moved on and I hope we can put our pool deck back together this weekend!

Kiersten

First Day of School!

I am thrilled that school is back in session! I thrive in stability and needed a set schedule to resume! Here are the boys on their first day! I, of course, have many pictures of them just standing and posing but one is smirking or squinting or frowning or looking away. For some reason, the only time they appear to both be happy is when they are messing around. Yes, welcome to my life. This is how they always are! So stability resumes only to have what happen? School was canceled day #2, #3 and #5 of the first week! And day #4 should have been canceled instead of those three but I won't get started on that . . . We were in the midst of Fay, the wild storm that sat near us for what felt like forever! I plan to take some pictures of our area later today. We are thankfully not in a 'devestated' area but just one that got tons of rain, probably some flooding for a few folks and just a MAJOR storm for this area.

So as I type this on the Friday of the first week of school, my kids are watching TV and just hanging out! There's always next week . . .

Kiersten