Irma
I was at Pine Hills for IRMA cat 5 2017 and gathered stats at that time to write what happened. The IRMA NWS wind peak was Leesburg 43 g 69 Spanish Spring 36 g 54 and 10-12 inches of rain – careful of Village – News they have some hyped numbers. It filled almost to the top all the retention ponds and flooded a few of the golf cart tunnels and The Villages overflow is to flood the golf courses some were underwater for 2 weeks. They run the sprinklers by the streets non stop to get the water out of the ponds-lakes.
We did not get roof or house damage (some houses lost a few shingles) but some BIG live oak trees knocked over due to the roots not being deep enough. Did not lose water in the villages & lost Leesburg power 19 hours Seco never lost it. Many areas around us lost both and some did not get power back for 7 days. Everything was closed for a day or two.
A few days before Irma the stores were empty of water, ice, bread, D type batteries but stores had pallets of water a day or so before it hit but no D batteries. Stores always had lots of AA batteries (I bought special lights that take AA after that). Before Irma gas stations ran out every day at some point, sporadic so 1 station had gas or a line 2 blocks long but another would only have a couple cars. (Get full tank & keep it days before it gets to you.) Tuesday night on 4 lane 301 we saw a 1 or 2 mile line at a gas station with 4 police cars with lights letting them take 1 lane and no gas at the end of Wednesday. Wednesday we took our niece to Orlando airport at 330am and the turnpike was a continuous line of cars probably still is today. LINES of cars leaving or returning empty gas stations before and a day or so after – after IRMA some cars sitting in the gas station until whenever they open no gas in the car to go anywhere.
The news HYPED it constantly and scared people (kept saying we'd get 75-95 wind then were saying 115mph gusts). People tried to leave a couple days before in huge lines and we heard many ended up in shelters further north because of no rooms in hotels or no gas to go further but lots of people stayed with someone they knew further inland. People on the coast that will be hit swarm inland and buy up everything a day or so before it hits.
My neighbor is a Florida guy and has been through 15 hurricanes. His advice is don’t watch the news/weather they hype it all and overplay the effects. We were Supposed to have wind 85-90 and our Villages houses are built to a 2004 hurricane standard of a little over 100 but hurricanes spin off tornados from the top right side so that is the real Villages danger.
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