Hi - we are in Pinellas County and got the storm surge from Helene - almost 2 feet of water in the house. We're still emptying stuff out and there are mountains of debris everywhere.

We were more fortunate than many that our home is concrete, plaster and terrazzo, so things are drying out, but virtually all our furniture and our major appliances are gone. Our yard is almost completely dead too - I lost just about every edible I had ☹️

We evacuated for both storms but went a lot further to escape Milton - all the way to Port St. Lucie. We expected another surge here and are very grateful that didn't happen since it would have taken out all the stuff we'd managed to salvage from Helene.

We've also been super lucky with being able to have safe places to stay and generous hosts. This is going to be a long slog.

Hi Gardengal, glad to hear you came through the storms Ok.

Carol, I’m so sorry about the damage from Helene but, I’m glad you managed to stay safe.

I’m in Manatee County and have been very lucky through this year’s trio of storms. After Milton we will need to replace our roof and I may have to remove some tilted trees. My husband and I have talked about selling our house since we are now empty nesters and don’t need as much space. After this year I’m less inclined to move. High enough to be above Debby’s floods, inland enough to escape Helene’s storm surge and solid enough to stand Milton’s winds. I will definitely need a better incentive to move than the house is bigger than we need.

Fingers crossed for the rest of the season.

I am in Port Charlotte and sure did get lucky with NO house damage, NO flooding, just a lot of tree debris. These two hurricanes really were hard on us with all the prep, clean up, and putting up/taking down the shutters. Hope it is over for this year. Linda Leaf

For all of us who did the hurricane hustle to get things ready one unexpected bonus is that all of the extra steps burn a ton of calories. My friend wore her fitbit during her prep and clocked over 15,000 steps.

Carol,

I am glad you are safe, but sorry your house flooded. I know from our beach residents how frustrating it is to dry things out and put it all back together. I wish you the best luck in finding the right people to help. When you get to repopulating your yard you are welcome to seeds and cuttings.

Meg,

I am glad you made it through as well. The winds sound crazy when they pass over, and a safe shelter is hard to pass up.

Hi Linda Leaf,

I am glad you made it through safely as well. I understand how long the yard cleanup takes. I think after Ian I had 22 wheelbarrows of palm debris to add to our mound by the road.

Carol so sorry to hear you were hard hit by the hurricanes. It is truly devastating! We lived in Louisianana in 2005 and got flooded out like that with Rita. Total nightmare.