TGIF

Friday morning, 20181019 0405 CDT here at Panama City Beach. Sitting up in bed to type this time instead of on the floor as yesterday. Cup of cold black coffee from the same Starbucks bottle as yesterday, fine.

Tass is coming from Tallahassee today, to check on us, and we will drive across the bridge into StAndrews to remove from 7H a few things that reason and discretion indicate should not be left while contractor work is going on; not today but tomorrow because the insurance adjuster is supposed to come tomorrow, though the hurricane damage here is so extensive, pervasive and horrendous that the adjusters have more work than Time and must keep rescheduling appointments; but hopefully.

Yesterday we drove into StAndrews and got a few articles from 7H. Harbour Village entry is blocked, fenced and guarded, a tall crane in the entryway court, taking things down from the roofs of the buildings, HVAC compressors, IDK, all of which may have to be replaced after being wind driven, broken loose and tossed around. We saw a bunch of them already, collected on the Green over the garage. Our condo unit had powerful dehumidifiers warming and drying the place. Before the storm, anticipating a TS or Cat 1 at most, we moved inside everything that was on the porch and outside the front door of 7H. Yesterday, Ray helped us (ok, Ray did it!) move all the porch furniture &c from the living room back outside.

We didn’t get out of the car and go in this Time, but did look again at the disaster that is M’s house, it now has a cover over the roof part that is torn away but the west side is open to the elements. Ray was waiting for insurance adjuster and FEMA representative.

Then we drove over to the Cove to look at the School, then to HN church. The ruin in the area, more and more extreme as one heads east and including the Cove, is gasping, mouth-dropping, takes one’s breath away, even now the next day as the mind pictures what I saw, I have to stop and clench my jaw shut to hold back emotions. Damage to the school is bad enough and will take months to repair.

However, all is wonderful at Amy's board!!

Anyone who believes this was a Category 4 hurricane is delusional, the damage is beyond belief, incredible, Bunkers Cove Road was blocked and we had no business there anyway, but I cannot even begin to imagine the devastation at Tyndall AFB and Mexico Beach where the eye-wall came ashore. The clutter of enormous old oak trees is bad enough, but the unending miles of once huge, tall pine trees, leaning and broken, is beyond imagination. Whoever has large pine trees reaching for the sky, best take them down if they are in reach of your house, deadly dangerous in a hurricane. Yards that had dozens of pines, it all looks like the blast from a nuclear bomb in a post-apocalyptic, dystopian movie, splintered pine trees, needles ripped off, all broken in the same direction, away from the blast, no words are adequate.

As for us, Linda, me, Kristen, Ray, Britany, Lilly and Malinda, we are fine. Malinda seems maybe slowly becoming better after the surgical intrusion into her brain to correct the other aneurysm, we have an appointment to return to Pensacola next Thursday just for the day, drive over for a visit with her medics and straight back to PCB. This beach condo is close, a bit tight and not enough furniture for everyone to sit down in the living room, but quite satisfactory; and we have a larger unit, three bedroom three bath, reserved from the end of October to the end of November. Maybe by then 7H will be habitable even if not refinished to perfection. That’s short-term, longterm is not yet clear in my mind. For all the upbeat smiley faces and We Shall Overcomes, they are not as far along in life as I, and I’ve been to Kyushu and Nagasaki and stood at the epicenter of the August 9, 1945 atomic bomb blast: because of the memories, I would not want to live there. So, IDK, the shock could be a lifetime wearing off in the new normal.

Strange dreams. Last night a long, ongoing uncomfortable dream that kept on and on. I was one of three star adults on a football team’s defense, it must have been pro-ball, who had developed a strange offense that was getting a lot of publicity with which I was most extremely uneasy. I was middle linebacker; the extremely powerful Russian woman was defensive tackle who could not be stopped by the offensive guard in front of her as she made her way to the quarterback, and the other guy was outside linebacker. The Russian woman’s job was to blast through and grab the football as the quarterback released his pass, toss it to me, who had fallen back a bit, and I passed it to the outside linebacker who had slammed through and run past the offensive backfield, grab my pass, and head to the offense’s goal line for a touchdown. It was working every time as an interception. Can a defense player who intercepts toss the ball back across the line of scrimmage and then another defense player pass it to another defense player who has run way downfield into offense territory? IDK, I don’t know nothin’ I don’t even like football that much anymore except on television, and only then when Blue or the Gators are winning. Or FSU with their new coach, whom I am rooting for. If Florida or Michigan get behind in the score, I have to leave the room and do something else. The unending dream was a nightmare!!

At least the tide wasn’t coming in or the wind picking up.

On calendar for today: waiting for Tass.