Hurricane Milton

For the past week, we’ve been getting to know Milton – Hurricane Milton. Milton started off like many hurricanes – a tropical disturbance – in the Gulf of Mexico. Throughout the weekend, it grew and eventually made it all the way to a Category 5 hurricane. It was projected to cross the Florida peninsula on Wednesday evening. For obvious reasons, this one got my attention.

As the week started, I had to decide what I was going to do. For as long as I have lived here, I’ve never stayed home for a hurricane. We have always packed up and made a mini vacation out of them. This time, Susan was in Virginia with her mother, and Andrew was at UCF. Andrew was told that classes were cancelled for Wednesday and Thursday. I was at work, with guidance that Northrop Grumman was not going to shut down the site. I had a dental appointment at 2:00 on Tuesday, so I knew I was leaving work at that time, but I wasn’t sure if I was going back Wednesday. I was surely taking off today.

On Tuesday night, I discussed some options with Susan and Andrew. We decided that Andrew and I would both stay where we were. I would later learn through an email that NG decided to shut down the Melbourne site on Wednesday and Thursday. UCF eventually decided to cancel classes on Friday as well. Had I received this information a little earlier, I could have picked up Andrew after my dentist appointment and driven, or flown, somewhere fun, like to Dallas to see the Union Pacific Big Boy steam engine, or to Georgia, or even to Virginia. But that didn’t happen, so I stayed at home, alone.

Since I didn’t leave town, I needed to find something to do on Wednesday. At first, that was easy. I have lots of things to check and update on the computer. After that, I decided I should probably prepare the yard for the approaching tropical storm (or higher) winds. I started with the back patio. I removed everything that I thought might get carried away.

The patio, before preparations

After many trips to the garage, the patio was ready for the storm. The only things left were the heavy granite table, the hot tub, and some baskets full of pool supplies. I moved the sandbag from the table onto the baskets, along with a bag of potting soil.

The patio, after preparations

After clearing the porch, I went inside and turned on the TV. I quickly found that I couldn’t pull myself away from the WESH 2 News broadcast, with its continuous, commercial-free coverage of the progress of the storm as it approached the Gulf Coast of Florida. It was unclear whether it would make landfall at Tampa Bay, or further south. This was a big deal, due to the rotation of the storm and how it effects the storm surge. If it arrived to the north of the bay, they expected a 15-foot storm surge into the bay. If it arrived to the south of the bay, they expected a very small surge, and possibly a drop in the water level, as the winds pushed the water out of the bay. This was very important to the people living there, for obvious reasons, but also because they had just dealt with the storm surge from Hurricane Helene just a few weeks earlier.

As Milton approached landfall, it weakened due to a large, dry airmass moving into the Gulf from the northwest. Even so, the counterclockwise swirling bands were still spinning up tornados in Miami and up the coast. As I watched the drama on the News, there was one tornado warning after another. Slowly, the warnings proceeded northward and eventually approached Melbourne. There were several strong cells just southwest of here, on the west side of Interstate 95, near Deer Park. Luckily for me, the next set of strong cells were offshore as they passed Melbourne. Cocoa Beach wasn’t as lucky, as those cells came back onshore and did some serious damage. The News team was struggling to verify if there were actually any tornados touching the ground because the storms were also creating an enormous amount of rainfall, with rates up to seven inches per hour. Later, the News reported that there were 98 tornado warnings issued, and there were four fatalities due to a tornado that hit in Fort Pierce.

Milton made landfall around 8:30 PM, as a Category 3 storm, near Sarasota. This is south of Tampa Bay, so that was good for everyone in the bay area. I went to bed around 10:00 PM, wondering what I might find in the morning.

During the night, I was awakened to the power going out. My subwoofer makes a low popping sound and my uninterruptable power supplies chirp when the power goes out. I thought I might have to get up and turn them off. Luckily, the power came back on a few minutes later and the chirping stopped. Later I awoke to hear strange noises coming from the roof. All in all, I was surprised how quiet the storm was. I expected the wind to keep me awake, and terrified of what might come slamming into the house.

This morning, after the sun rose, I started looking around. Out back, I noticed that the two angled braces in the corners of our screen were no longer connected. I also noticed a few dead palm branches lying in the yard.

A view of the back yard

Out front, I was surprised to see very little evidence that a hurricane had passed right over us the night before. I’m sure part of that is due to Hurricane Helene knocking a lot of branches down a few weeks earlier, but still, there wasn’t even standing water.

A view of the front yard

When I walked out further, I notice a bunch of loose shingles on the ground. I wondered, “Where did these come from?” I remembered the strange sound I had heard during the night, so I walked around the house to inspect the roof. I could not see any missing shingles on my ridge lines.

Scattered shingles

Later, when the light rain stopped, I went outside to start cleaning up the small branches. I created a pile in the back yard, then started raking the front yard. I quickly got tired of raking, so I moved everything that I moved to the garage back to the patio. It was nice to get the cans of fermenting yard waste out of the garage. When I finished this, the rain started to pick up. This felt good for a while, but then I decided to go back inside to cool off.

Several hours later, the sun started to come out through gaps in the clouds, so I walked around the neighborhood. I was hoping to find a house with missing shingles. I walked the loop and didn’t see any missing shingles, so I pulled out the ladder and climbed up on my roof. The smaller ridge lines were all intact, but then I saw a long, black streak on the top ridge. At least a dozen cappers were missing.

I climbed back down and pulled out the rake again. I finished raking the front yard and added my twigs to the large pile of broken trees that my northerly neighbors had created earlier. Now we just have to wait for the yard waste guys to come haul it all away. Hopefully that will happen before the grass under the piles dies.

Ridge line with missing shingles

The picture below is the full track of Hurricane Milton.

Track of Hurricane Milton