Thursday, October 25, 2012

Post Hurricane Sandy


"It's only a Category 1 Hurricane" is something I will never say!


Hurricane Sandy unleashed her fury on Guantanamo Bay!  It was quite scary and unnerving.  I eagerly anticipated the end to the worst of it which lasted about 6 hours.  The whipping wind, sideways blowing rain and sections of flashing being torn off of our roof made for a sleepless night for most of us.  Our two teenagers, in typical teenage fashion, managed to sleep through the entire storm.  Not following suit, our little ones (and the dog), followed us around for most of the night and only managed to catch winks of sleep here and there.  The power went off around midnight so as the temperature increased in the house, the chances for sleep decreased.

"Should we really spend money on a generator?" is also something I will never say again!

As soon as the worst of the storm passed, Vic got the generator started up and plugged in a small a/c unit, some fans and the surround sound.  I was exceedingly grateful for Vic's purchase that I tried to convince him not to make.  The cool air was a welcome feeling after a long, sticky night.  And while our power was restored this morning around 10 a.m., the three hours that we had the generator running were wonderful.

As far as damage, our house and yard only had very minor damage.  Some flashing and gutters torn off, branches from trees blown down, and a few shingles blown off the roof.  The cover over the neighborhood playground is shredded to pieces.  During the last tropical storm, a small hole started, but Hurricane Sandy finished it off.  I'm sad about that since it provides such wonderful shade for the kids to play during the blazing hot days here.  I'm hopeful that it will be replaced soon but I wouldn't be surprised if it takes awhile.  After all, there are certainly much more pressing issues around base.

As far as damage to the whole base, I have seen a few pics that are very disturbing!  It looks like the marina sustained quite a bit of damage.  Many of the boats are up on the shore or on top of each other on the docks.  Also, I hear there is a good bit of damage to the dock at Ferry Landing.  But overall, it seems as though most of the homes sustained little damage and hopefully there were no people hurt.  If you would like to see some pics for yourself, go to Facebook, look for the page called, Naval Station Guantanamo Bay, Cuba and check out the album for yourself.

Hurricane Sandy has certainly added to our adventure here in GTMO, but I'm sure glad it is over!  I now am quite sure that each decision that we previously made while living in FL to evacuate from a hurricane was the right decision!

 This pic was actually taken long before the hurricane force winds arrived.  The worst part of it was a night time so I couldn't get any pictures during the storm.
 Sounds of this tearing off during the night was pretty scary!  There are several spots around our house and that look just like this.

Here is the shredded covering over the playground.  This made for a very sad Vincent! 



2 comments:

  1. Quick question. did you bring the generator with you or was it supplied to you? and what about the ac unit? Did you bring that as well or is that how ac works over there? Is there central air? Thanks April

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  2. Hi April,
    We bought both the generator and the ac unit at the NEX in anticipation of the power outage. We had heard (and now have experienced) that there are occasional power outages here as the power company works on, tests or upgrades things so we figured it would come in handy at times. All the houses have central ac here so normally ac isn't a problem, just when the power is out.

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