Hurricane Dorian Meets PEI (Sep 2

September 11, 2019

Hurricane Dorian Meets PEI (Sep 2 - 9, 2019)

It was almost hard to believe. I was reading about Dorian preparations in Florida, thought about people we knew who might be affected in Wachula, Florida where we’d spent a month this past winter, saw the devastation in the Bahamas and kept following its track.

Suddenly we were preparing for Hurricane Dorian ourselves.

Strangely, to me anyway, the weather was pretty good, mostly gorgeous all week including Friday.... But, let's start with the beginning of the week. Wonderful fireworks at Seal Cove with the family to celebrate Labour Day followed up with a beautiful fire on a pretty cool evening.

Beautiful Evening - Waiting for fireworks

Back on the job we worked away at the house. Put insulation under on top of the joists and under the plywood. This isn’t the usual way but with such a damp basement, S

cott wanted the floor to be well sealed. The house frame is still somewhat crooked which made screwing the plywood down to the joists no fun at all.

Scott put down “wing” insulation around the house about 1.5 feet down, taped and foamed it in place then covered it with stone. I’m told this should help the ground around the foundation not freeze quite as much and aid with drainage.

My favorite added benefit is that weeds won’t likely grow right up to the house.

Gravel filled in around the house

Wing Insulation

Next for me was removing hundreds of nails still in the walls and on the ceiling from the destruction.

Another delivery

We’d taken the long weekend Monday off so it was a short week. With the hurricane prep it got even shorter. Friday we sealed and boarded up the house as best we could, moved the RV to nephew Matts driveway, as we would be way too exposed at our place, and hoped for the best.

Boarded up as best we could

Dorian was expected to hit Halifax Saturday morning and PEI in the evening so we ran errands in the morning. Pictures of the Sobeys in Charlottetown circulated showing the snack aisle almost completely empty. It wasn’t so bad in Montague. We did pick up snacks. The other popular items included gas, some places ran out and alcohol, Scott got what he needed and Matts place is never lacking in that department. Driving around it was really noticeable how many yards were cleaned up, things put away. There was still some time and something I’d really wanted to do was get Scott in to the local furniture store (Beck’s Home Furniture) to get an idea of what we both liked to help with planning. We got that done, picked Veda up with her overnight bag and headed back to Matt’s to hunker down. Chasity filled up the bathtub with water to use flushing the toilet.

Kids before the storm

By 3 pm the wind was really picking up. If you are ever in this situation with a motorhome, remember not to put down the stabilizers. The pressure could cause them to bend or snap. We knew this but something we learned was to turn off the water heater. It kept trying to light and the pilot was blown out by the wind leaving the whole RV smelling of propane. Luckily Scott went out to get something and discovered this early on. It was also rocking like a boat when he was out there. At 22,000 lbs it would take quite a wind to blow it over so I just had to breathe and tell myself whatever happens, happens, we’ve done all we can.

The neighbours (Chasity’s sister) plastic yard shed started shaking.. the door came off and flew past us and over the house. Soon the rest of the panels and the roof were scattered over the yard. Pam and Trevors’ trampoline had been strapped down but ended up pinned to their shed. The fabric garage over Jacobs car was completely shredded.

Garage no more

The hurricane had been downgraded to a tropical storm with the brunt expected to hit between 11 pm and 2 am so it was a shock to hear that the roof of the furniture store we’d been in a few hours earlier was torn off at 4:30 pm. It’s a large 4-storey building but also quite an old one. The roof came off completely landing on the storage building beside it and exposing their massive inventory to rain and wind. It will take time for them to sort it out and recover. We did make some jokes about “hurricane” deals coming soon with Chas thinking of a new kitchen table and us about furniture in general but thank goodness they had closed at 3pm and no one was hurt.

Most of the other damage we saw the next day were downed trees, often hanging up on power lines and shingles lost. The power went out on Saturday at 4:46 and for some people it isn’t back yet

(6:30 pm on Monday).

Craziest thing we saw … should have gotten a picture.. was a house on which half the shingles had literally rolled up the roof, roofing membrane and all. We saw it the next day when 2 guys were trying to unroll it back down. They did manage this and screwed some wood down over it to make do until it gets replace.

Personally, it was very scary on Saturday watching, listening and feeling the wind. Matt and Chasity have a second story screen room off the back of their house which was really trying to lift off. Only the straps Matt had secured it down with saved it and even that was probably a close call.

We hung out, watched the storm through the windows, played games with the kids and tried to keep Dominic and each other from being too scared, chatted, enjoyed dinner (spaghetti I’d made earlier in the motorhome) together. I was relieved when it got dark and I didn’t need to watch the wind in the trees any longer. Eventually everyone got to sleep at least off and on.

Scott made pancakes on the propane stove in the motorhome Sunday morning and brought them inside to share. It was still windy but the worst had passed.

Kayla and GG (Great - Grandma / Veda) watching the storm

Family time waiting for the storm to pass

Late morning, we headed out to see the house and were happy to see it was still on it’s foundation and dry inside. Those who know us, know we always have another plan and change direction relatively easily. We’d been prepared for the worst and ready to implement Plan F : Frik IT!! we’ll head south. LOL!! Well I shouldn’t laugh. That was in fact the back up plan.

With everything secure we headed over to visit Pam, Trevor and Emily. The great thing about no electricity (they did have a generator) and trees blocking roads is there’s no need to hurry or to go anywhere. We had a wonderful afternoon with them, started and completed a puzzle (minus the 2 missing pieces.. Emily drew them in for us), playing Scrabble and Battleship. Trevor made a yummy dinner after spending time cleaning up the yard. It was just a lot of fun hanging out.

Trees down everywhere

It’s Monday evening now and while there is no internet there is electricity at our place. People are cleaning up their yards, some collecting firewood by helping others cut up fallen trees and hydro crews are out in force. We’re back on track looking out over the strait on another gorgeous day.