Quote:
Originally Posted by Velvet
It’s a lovely area, mature trees, larger lots. Several manufactured houses are starting to be rebuilt to site built. During a hurricane they do want people to get out of manufactured houses as these homes are not built to the code that later homes were built. I suppose one could always make friends with people on the other side of TV and stay with them for a day or two while the storm passed.
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The thing is though - this section of the Villages is mostly unaffected by hurricanes. Might be the result of being closest to the Ocala Forest, which acts as a barrier of sorts against the wind? It could also be that we're on a higher elevation than the rest of The Villages. Maybe we're simply closer to the "center" of Central Florida. I don't know diddly about geology, or weather science, but I'm sure some science geeks will have an explanation.
There was some flooding in 2017, making it impossible for golf carts to get over the bridge to Spanish Springs for a couple of days. There was also some flood damage to some homes at the edge of Silver Lake. But to my knowledge, there was no catastrophic damage to the manufactured homes on this side as the result of severe weather, since a tornado came through in 2007. The tornado damaged homes on the other side of 441 too.
We get wind and rain, sure. But Harold Schwartz apparently hired some top-notch engineers and land surveyors who designed a very efficient design layout of the properties here. I've only lived here three years, but we've visited The Villages for over a decade before moving. A friend we visited was 2 doors away from a house that was demolished by a tornado. And that was south of Sumter Landing, off Buena Vista somewhere on a street that lost several homes. That year, the Historic Section remained relatively unscathed, though the power was out for a few days and that alone was pretty horrible.
To answer the OP's question: our utilities are underground. There's a power tower next to Wawa outside our neighborhoods on 441, and there's another one behind East Schwartz, and I remember seeing the top of one across the street on Griffin somewhere near the southeastern corner of the Silver Lake village, but none within our community at all. We have no tunnels that anyone has to worry about, and MOST of our area is on a higher elevation, which reduces the risk for flooding (but obviously doesn't eliminate it).
I'm not personally aware of any homes with gas power or stoves on this side of the Villages. I also don't know if propane stoves are a thing here. Every home I've visited has electric. That doesn't mean they don't exist, it just means I've never seen it.