Key West, Naples and Marco Island got hit hard...damage in Orlando was spotty. If Irma hadn't changed it's course to more NE after Naples, the flooding in Tampa-St Pete-Clearwater would have been catastrophic, the Philippines not-with-standing.
We lost several trees, debris is everywhere and there's at least a truckload of leaves in the bottom of my pool. I worked for about 2 hours yesterday trying to dig it all out, and after I got sick of messing with it, I stepped back and looked at the progress and it looked like I had barely put a dent in it. So we are working again today trying to get everything somewhat pulled back together. This is actually kind of funny given what happened. I've got some pretty mature bamboo clusters on each side of my yard, easily 35 feet high. I don't know if you've ever messed around with bamboo before, but it's unbelievably strong. Even when I try to cut it with a chainsaw, I wonder what's going to win, the chainsaw or the bamboo. It literally feels like you're cutting through steel or some other material that's not wood. So to see that the wind was actually able to snap this bamboo in half blows my mind: So.... mother nature somehow was able to snap one of the toughest natural woods right in half, but... she was unable to shake even a single orange off my newly planted tree. The best part about the whole situation is that we didn't lose power for any significant amount of time. It cut off several times but came right back on within a minute or two. So now our house is like a refugee camp for family and friends that lost power a couple of days ago and are still waiting for it to come back on. According to the power company, it will be at least a week or two before most people can realistically expect to have their electricity back.
Nice, Baron. Perhaps it has to do with the height of the bamboo and the fact that your oranges are still really green. Anyway, good to see you went through without too much damage.
In Asia they build 20-30 floor high scaffolds out of bamboo. "Don't worry, Chinese bamboo is very strong." at 3 min: The bamboo never breaks, just the ties...
Concrete is used in places like Cuba, Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic, not sure why Florida insists on piece of shit houses with bricks and gypsum board inside, but the absolute classic, wooden rooves!
Perhaps concrete is cheaper or used as the standard material though? I'm curious as well. In US people seem to spend ridiculous amounts of money for buildings that are just wooden frames with some gypsum. It doesn't add up.
Wow Bamboo keeling over - that stuff is bullet proof. I also have it growing in my yard. I wonder if anyone was buying airline tickets in bulk to price gouge the locals. Just by coincidence I had a ticket when hurricane Iniki (cat 4) hit Kauai & leveled it out back in the 80's, the airline called me up and told me they had locals willing to pay 10X over what I had paid to return back home just after the storm passed, I told them just refund my cost and make sure someone in need got that ticket at the same price I had paid.