Thankful and Heartbroken

This is a meme that is floating around social media from people in the Tampa Bay area. Maybe it’s a way of saying we have survivor guilt? For days Hurricane Ian was heading right to us and at the last minute it turned and made a direct hit south of us (The same thing happened in 2004 with Hurricane Charley). Total devastation from Fort Myers to Naples. Then massive flooding across central Florida. It was gut wrenching to watch the news. Most of St. Pete lost power but we only had yard debris so we were really lucky.

Sunset on the night of the hurricane, across the street from us.

We had super low  tide the day after as well as the day of. These were taken on Thursday, the day Ian was forecasted to hit Tampa. Later that night the water came back with a surge but nothing like it was south of us.

Early Friday morning I went for a walk at the Dunedin causeway and the tide was still crazy low.

You could see where seagrass had been churned up and left in the low tide.

This is a common sight all over the bay, stranded boats. Many had the anchor come up and floated towards sea walls and bridges. Some got stranded at low tide. (Although these are nothing like the pictures from Fort Myers and south with boats on top of buildings and in peoples homes.).

Here is a video from CNN that shows the aftermath of Ian.

Red Cross Donation site.

SkyWatch Friday

5 thoughts on “Thankful and Heartbroken

  1. The quote is so true. Please don’t have guilt. You have lived through plenty yourself and need strength to help friends and neighbors grieve. I’m thankful for the photos and descriptions in order to gain better perspective.

  2. Thankful you are ok but of course we all grieve for all of those affected. My sister used to live in Clearwater but moved up to Hernando back in August. I also have a brother that just moved to Fort Walton Beach and a friend who just moved to Lakeland Ranch. She did not even lose power. I loved Dunedin when we visited my sister back in 2019. We have a trip planned to visit my sister for Thanksgiving this year.

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