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.
I found one of the reddish egrets feeding in a small lagoon out on the beach at Fort Desoto in mid-March. It wasn’t too hard to find. There were several other photographers already there. He was dancing around looking for fish and was quite entertaining for a while. They use their wings to cast a shadow on the water so they can see the liffle fishies better. The color on their faces are brighter this time of year during mating season.
