A lot of amazing video he caught. Surge, wind and fire. As Bill said, that's why you evacuate. Sandy in 2012 had a large fire that burned out of control in the flood waters. That fire could have easily spread well beyond the building or two it burned. He caught the power flashes and transformer going. Those can be really dangerous. I had a former neighbor that moved to south Tampa tell me that during Milton the power transformer behind their house blew up. They said it was the second time in two months. I assume Helene must have been the other time. It didn't cause a fire. I noticed where I was in Inverness the power went out and then came back on. Then later it was only partly on, perhaps from a generator that was going at either Walmart or Lowes. Never did figure that out. And then driving from there back to Tampa, everything was about as dark as it was when Jim was driving, though it was calm and not raining at that time. Things will take a long time to get back to normal for the neighborhoods around me. Today was the second time I went out since the storm. I saw a lot more trees down. A lot of billboards had the material where the banners are on them ripped apart. A few of those structures themselves had damage. Signs at some shopping centers blown down. Gas was actually available. I didn't think it was yet as out of all the gas stations I passed, only one had someone at a pump. I finally stopped at the station I normally do and they had gas. Finally, there are some areas around here where debris is being removed. Several nights ago on the news I heard someone talk about how it felt good to cleanup their yard and kind of get back closer to normal. It made me think of all the piles of debris. There's lot of yard debris piles everywhere, but it's the debris from people's houses that must be really tough for people. It's tough to look at all the neighborhoods around me with giant debris piles in front of most houses. I can't imagine what they must feel having it in their yards to see it every day. Hard to start to move on. But I did see some of the piles removed when I drove past the Bay Crest neighborhood. Some piles were removed from Dana Shores, the neighborhood next to me, but most remain. I saw a crew removing some debris there. Not sure if that was private removal or county contracted. I saw on the news last night that one place I think in Pinellas County was telling people maybe 6 months it would take based on what a contractor told the particular city, but they hoped it would be sooner to remove the debris. This was the biggest tree down that I saw, It was in Dana Shores. This was across the street from the other tree that was blocking one of the roads to my neighborhood. It thankfully missed their house. A neighbor several doors down had a giant tree in their yard before the storm. Milton really kind of did a number on it so they removed the entire thing. There are giant piles of the tree at the street. I think FEMA will pay to pick up debris within a certain amount of time, so I think that's what people are doing. Wait until it gets picked up by city or county and then that government would get reimbursed by FEMA. |