The approach of Hurricane Milton had us reviewing our plans. We like to leave the state when a hurricane comes to call but it seems less of an option right now, with Randy's health concerns. His entire medical support staff is here and while things can be transferred, it could be complicated. So we decided to ride it out in the church building again.
This time we were counting on our generator to keep our refrigerator and freezers going; it can easily keep them cold if we rotate it between them. Unfortunately, although Randy had run the generator beforehand, it decided not to run when we needed it. So the day before the hurricane we were looking for trouble-shooting videos and taking it apart. Randy was able to disassemble it and clean enough parts that it started working again - great! Then we spent the hurricane night at the church, sleeping on couches and waking to look outside all night. In the dark there was nothing to see, especially after 3 am when the power went out.
Next morning we headed home; most of the roads were clear but we had to take a detour around Eagle's Nest road - it was completely blocked by a huge tree across it.
We were happy to see that our place only lost a few pieces of the roof trim. Our neighbors on either side had worse experiences with the loss of an enclosed porch and a carport roof, but their actual houses are intact and they were not home so nobody was hurt.
All we had to deal with (besides helping neighbors) was the loss of power. No internet, no lights, no phone (unless we got in the car and drove into town). The generator did a great job of keeping our food safe. We got Stavros' pizza a couple of time and the leftovers got us through. In the bathroom we had the "hurricane bathroom survival pack" - 5 gallons of water for the toilet, battery-powered candle, and wet wipes.
