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Hows it going down there?

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Hows it going down there?

Did everyone survive the hurricane? I know power is out in a lot of places down there. The board has been quiet the last day and a half while the hurricane was tearing up south Florida.
The only one posting was smurfboy blueraiderpride leaving insults.

I hope everyone is OK. I've been watching the news. Lots of damage.

FAU - THE REAL SLEEPING GIANT
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Hows it going down there?

That entire south Florida area was hit and power is out all over the place. Possibly up to 4 weeks in some areas.

I live in Tampa so I came through OK.
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Hows it going down there?

Glad to know that you are OK O.G.

Does anyone know if the team flew back late Saturday/early Sunday just to get blown around yesterday?
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Hows it going down there?

They came in very early sunday morning.
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Hows it going down there?

Can anyone account for the other board members that live down there? I'm not sure who that includes.

The news doesn't make it look good. How does this compare to Andrew?

FAU - THE REAL SLEEPING GIANT
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Hows it going down there?

I just drove the 4hr trip down on Tuesday morning. The entire place is a DISASTER area!!! I checked on my son in Boca Raton near the FAU campus. His apartment have major damage but he's OK. No power,Food,Water or gas. Tempers flaring like crazy! Lines for blocks(1/2 mile at least) to get ice and food. Gas lines run for miles on the Turnpike! Troopers having a hard time controlling gas limits of 20.00 per car. Too many side fights have kept them busy. Once you leave Lake Wales(approx 175 miles north) you are on your own! No gas or lights. Curfews kick in at 7PM. I took an extra 12 Gallons down with me so I didn't run out. Schools are closed until Monday. Some people got their lights back on in Sunrise / LauderHill Yesterday afternoon.

Some roads are impassable. Phone lines are down. Live wires are all over the place. Very few cell phone towers are working. If you get connected the connections are barely audible and will terminate any second.

I just drove back up on Thursday morning. I'm thinking about going back down from Tampa and take a generator for an elderly woman across the walkway from my son. She haven't heard form her family since Monday and she need help.

Owlsnest Posters and all south Floridians, our prayers are with you.

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Hows it going down there?

Things are very slowly coming back to normal. The curfew was moved back to 9 p.m. and they say gas should start getting easier to get.

Powr is trickling back on (I got mine tonight), but probably only 5-10 percent of the areas have power now. Some (few) signal lights are back. Schools might start back next week, but not on Monday.

FAU would not let my daughter and friends into their dorm rooms, so they are without almostall their clothers, books, computers, etc. They were left stranded.

Word in the dorms was that the campus needed to be evacuated if the storm reached Cat-3. But that happened at 11 p.m. the night before landfall. So there was no evacuation. Water was coming in through the windows of my daughter's relatively new dorm and the carpet was soaked.

Stores are opening and selling food and other items (so why are so many people waiting hours for ice and water?). Why were so many people so ill-prepared when it came to having a few days of food, water and gas? (Having a boat to suck gas from helped me.)

This was the perfect weekend for a bye in football.

FEMA (and the state and FPL?) is screwing Palm Beach County when it comes to relief supplies and distribution points. Dade and Broward get all the attention and action, apparently. It stinks.
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Hows it going down there?

Glad you're OK BMarkey. Are you in the north Palm Beach County area? It looks like some people didn't take this storm too serious I guess. Most was assuming that once it hit the West Coast of Naples and Collier County, it would dissipate before it hit the East Coast. Governor Jeb asked the same question. But most would have been out of ice and food by the 3rd day anyway because of lack of power.
To answer the "why are they waiting in line" question, I can say that a lot of people I spoke with in passing, that they have no access to the ATM(no power). Or gas to drive to the few stores which were open on Wednesday. But like you said they could have prepared a little better. You're lucky you have the boat to cipher gas from. That saved you the headache of getting up front and seeing an "out of gas" sign.

President Bush and his crew went to Miami/Dade instead of Broward and Palm Beach on Thursday. I don't know why he changed his original plans for Ft Lauderdale. Immokelee(near Naples) on the West Coast was on his agenda too. That also changed.
I'd guess that something or someone steered him to Miami.

Good Luck and Keep us informed.

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Hows it going down there?

I rode out the storm in my apartment over in Boca. Power went out at about 8:00 in the morning over there and so did our water. I know that my complex got destroyed however my apartment faired ok. Shingles on the apartments are about 95% gone leaving bare wood and windows are just blown out. I drove by the campus the day following the storm. It got hit very very hard. Fortunately a buddy of mine lives on the west coast of Florida where I am from and I caught a ride home with him or else I would be stuck over there. The one thing I am wondering is how they figure school I going to open back up on Monday. I heard there was structural damage on a few of the buildings so wouldnt engineers have to come in and OK the buildings safety? Who knows? I hope everyone faired ok in the storm, it will be a little while, but we will all make it through it eventually.
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Hows it going down there?

I stuck out the hurricane in my girlfriend's grandparents home in Pembroke Pines area because they haven't lost power in 40 YEARS of living in Florida from any hurricane except one time for 2 hours!! So we were hoping we could keep power while staying there but no such luck… Wilma wiped out Broward County badly. :( 98% without power - the worst of all counties in Florida! And the slowest to get the power back too - Less than 1% repaired in 2 days whereas areas like Miami had about 20% back in 2 days!

So we traveled back up to our homes in Palm Beach County on Wednesday and Turnpike was EXTREMELY stop-and-go and CRAZY drivers. Gas lines stretched over 3 miles in length! People were VERY angry and getting crazy with the traffic and gas lines and driving in the emergency lanes and through the grass even! It was insane.

BUT arriving at West Palm Beach things did not improve too much - power lines were downed everywhere - all the way down 441 they were fallen over and many other areas as well. Everything was hit hard the entire way! Roof pieces were hanging on some (still standing) power lines!

Our houses of course had no power but we both have generators and ways to cook meals but no hot water. And she is on a boil-water alert. Luckily, my house regained power, cable, internet, and phone service ALL ON THURSDAY (10/27) at about 6:00 PM which is when my family and I returned from emergency-supply shopping to find the lights were ON!!!! Wow! We were dancing and so were the neighbors - dancing in the street! Only 4 days without power - the worst last season had our house out for 6 days and it was FRYING HOT. All of Florida at least lucked out with this one in that a COLD FRONT was here to help out but that is moving away now.

My thoughts and prayers go out to all the other families and people who are dealing with the aftermath of this terrible storm. Gas lines and everything being closed of course still presents a problem and work for the most part is still closed due to NO POWER.

Stay safe everyone and stop at the intersections. Car accidents have been the number ONE fatality in the these storm's aftermath that FL has seen because people run the downed intersection lights instead of treating them all as four-way stops.
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