I was happy to wake up this morning and see how many of my east coast friends had posted with they were safe, out of power, or had trees down, a leak here and there but otherwise safe. I worry about the ones that have not posted yet, my friend who was taking news photos in Atlantic City. I am thinking of all that lost homes to the fire and those that lost them in the flooding.

As a survivor of Camille, Elena, Georges, and Katrina, my heart goes out to anybody in the path of a big hurricane! I need to go check my maps to see where the monarchs overwinter relative to where the hurricane is going. Actually, butterflies do better in hurricanes than birds or squirrels, 'don't know why. Sherry

If there are folks here who have not visited the Kitchen Table, I suggest they go over there and read some of the threads, especially the one called "Harvey", which is telling ongoing stories of what people are going through in detail, like Lucille (wishing you safety and good health, Lucille, and hoping that your losses are not too drastic) and Raven, about whom there is a lot of detail, beginning when she wasn't even sure that they'd have to evacuate, and Marilyn, who is on a bayou and who had to swim her horses out and lost some of the other animals she has rehabbed and adopted. Raven, Lucille, Marilyn, and others are writing some very sad things; you can read many personal accounts.

Cape Coral, across the river from Ft. Myers here. We came through fine. My plumeria looks pretty battered, but the rest of my plants and our home are fine. Most neighbors fared well, too. All around town there are downed or broken live oaks and palm trees, and plenty of palm fronds. Royal poinciana trees didn't fare too well, either. It could have been much worse. Spotty power outages still exist in the Cape, but other areas in FM and Naples may be without power for a week or two longer. While the storm surge wasn't bad here, there is some flooding. We get sheet flow from Charlotte county. Other areas of the county are dealing with a lot of water. You also need to remember that when Harvey hit Texas, we had a tropical low dump rain on us at the same time. Although unrelated to the hurricane, we did get over 20 inches of rain in a couple of days. So the ground was already saturated. I think the ACOE is trying to figure out a way to pump the water out of some areas because they won't drain. We had actually evacuated to our son's place in Tampa - - because, you know, it looked like it would hit up there! LOL He did not even lose power. The area is near USF and didn't look like it took too much damage. His place of employment was flooded so he didn't work on Monday or Tuesday. But all in all, they dodged a bullet, too!