The truth is, we have been kind of busy and now we are going to tell you "The rest of the story".
As soon as the hurricane passed, we started hearing reports of massive damage to many of the islands that make up the Florida Keys as well as damage to parts of the mainland.
There were also reports of continued fuel outages throughout the state so we decided that the best course of action for us to take was to just wait. We were in a safe place and still had electricity and water.
We contacted Jack, our RV park manager, who was now staying with friends near Tampa. He said he was not going back until the electricity and water were turned back on at the RV park. Remember that the temperatures in Marathon at the time were in the mid 90's and with the high humidity, it felt like the mid 100's, so none of us wanted to go back until there was power for air conditioning and water for showers.
We planned on returning to Grassy Key RV Park to help with the repairs and restoration but we were going to wait a bit longer.
That is when Stacey, our fellow work camper and evacuee, told us that she had some friends that lived near the RV park where we were currently staying that were employees at Disney World and had offered to take all of us to Epcot Center for a free visit using their employee privileges. Who could say no to an offer like that so away we went.
Stacey introduced us to Bill and Connie who were very nice people who spent the entire day showing us around Epcot Center at Walt Disney World.
Bill and Connie
Tom, Suzie and Stacey
We spent a very relaxing day walking around the "Wonderful World of Disney" and thanks to Connie and Bill we were able to put the stress of the evacuation and the worry of what we would be going home to behind us for a day.
Even Donald Duck helped comfort Suzie.
Eventually, it was time to return to reality. We continued to watch the news about progress in restoring vital utilities in the Keys and we were also able to monitor the traffic, once locals were allowed back into the Keys. By monitoring various outlets on the internet, we could see horrible traffic jams at the only entrance to the Florida Keys.
You had to show proof of residency to the police before you were allowed back onto the islands and people waited in line for hours before passing through the checkpoint.
We couldn't figure out why they were in such a big hurry to get back into the disaster area before water and power were restored and we couldn't figure out where they were getting their fuel to make the trip.
We waited a few more days.
Finally, we found out that the power had been restored to the area where our RV park is located in Marathon and that water was back on, but that there was a "boil the water before drinking" advisory in effect.
Jack, our RV park manager, told us he was heading back down to inspect the damage and determine if it was safe to turn the power back on into the RV park. We told him we would follow the next day if the power was on.
Jack was able to get the power back on safely so we headed back home after being gone for 15 days.
The trip back was tough. The traffic was heavy and obtaining fuel was still a problem, but we finally left the mainland and started down into the Keys.
As we drove through all of the little communities that make up the Florida Keys, we saw unbelievable devastation. You could see wind blown debris everywhere and trees were blown over everywhere you looked.
The ocean had been violently heaved up onto the island in places and had brought with it tons of sand. There were areas where we could see that had been covered with several feet of sand and that included the roadway.
It almost looked like someone had come through with a snow plow to clear the road. We had traveled this roadway many times and there isn't supposed to be ANY sand here.
As we drove deeper into the Keys, we saw lots of people working, trying to clear away debris enough to gain access to the side streets and homes along the side of the roadway.
We saw truck after truck hauling in heavy equipment to aid in the debris removal and restoration, as well as huge, long bed dump trucks to haul away the debris.
When we got back to our home base, Grassy Key RV Park, we had good news and bad news. The main office building/club house was still there and looked almost untouched, but there was also massive damage to deal with.
This is what the front of the park looked like just before we evacuated. There was an 8' high Silver Buttonwood hedge along the front of the park and a lush jungle-like berm to separate the park from the highway.
This is what it looked like when we got back.
This is the entrance driveway.
This is what the entrance looked like as we drove back in.
The park has a beautiful swimming pool that is surrounded by lush foliage.
This is what we came home to.
There were palm fronds and branches filling the pool and even though it looked like we would see one, there were no alligators in the swampy water.
We were also lucky that the ocean surge was mostly held on the other side of the main road, which kept sand from filling our pool.
We talked to people who had homes directly across the street from us on the ocean side and not only were their homes filled with sand, but their swimming pools were filled with sand, too.
As soon as we got set up in a site, we started working. Even though the clubhouse wasn't damaged, there was still lots of work to do.
Trees were blown over, palm fronds were everywhere, seaweed was clinging to everything where the storm surge had washed sea water from the Atlantic Ocean over the south side of the island, over the roadway and then across our park.
A lot of the plants were so badly damaged from the wind and the salt water that they had to come out. Jack hired a Bobcat to help with that and those guys really did a lot of work that would have just about killed us if we had done it by hand.
You can see in this picture that what was left of the Silver Buttonwoods at the front of the property had been ripped out by the Bobcat.
We still cleaned up all of the debris by hand and . . . . did I mention it was HOT!
Every day the thermometer said it was around 95º but the weatherman said that it felt like 105º. We were sweating like pigs.
How hot was it?? It was so hot it would melt the soles right off of your shoes!!!
Suzie and Stacey cleaning up.
After a few days, stores in Marathon began to open back up and so we had an opportunity to travel through some of the destroyed areas that we hadn't yet had a chance to see.
Several gas station canopies blew down.
Stores improvised as they opened while still cleaning up.
Huge piles of debris were piled along the side of the main highway. The State had a plan to have contractors come in and haul away whatever was stacked along the side of the road for free and, boy, did it get stacked up.
This pile was at least 15' tall and 1/4 mile long and there were stacks like this all along the highway for the entire length of the Florida Keys . . . . . over 100 miles!!!
This was one of the many piles that we made of debris just from our little RV park. The blue board is 10' long.
As we drove down the highway, we were amazed to see entire garages, storage sheds and even one complete house that had been washed from the oceanside of the highway to the Gulf side of the highway, completely intact. They literally floated up off of their foundations blocks in the high storm surge and were then blown hundreds of feet across the highway where they came to rest in the mangroves.
The highway cleanup crews were divided up into three sections with each section being assigned to clean up 1/3 of the 100 mile stretch of debris that was being stacked up.
It took a while for the crews working on the middle Keys where we live to get here, but they finally started hauling the debris away.
The trucks would line up along the side of the road and at the head of the line would be a huge loader that had a big claw hand at the end of a long boom arm and it would start loading the trucks at dawn and wouldn't stop until dusk every night. They worked 7 days a week for weeks hauling the debris away.
You may wonder, what did they do with all of the debris after they loaded it into the trucks.
Well, they transported it to large fields which they used as staging areas to stockpile the debris before they could run it through giant shredders.
This picture shows a very large loader stacking debris. He is just getting started. When the debris was so high that he couldn't stack it any higher, he drove the loader up on top of the stack and then kept stacking it higher. This pile ended up being about 3 stories high.
After the debris got stacked, we weren't sure what was going to happen with it. Now, it looks like they are going to shred the vegetation and building materials and burn it in huge burn piles. They are going to separate out all of the metal and recycle it and all of the refrigeration units like freezers, A/C units and refrigerators will be drained of their freon and then recycled.
This trailer park/RV park got wiped out.
What was left of the trailers were stacked up to be hauled away. Here you see a stack of trailer frames with axles and tires attached.
There was stuff stacked everywhere.
There didn't seem to be any rhyme or reason to the destruction. One house would be destroyed and the one next door looked okay.
We figure the couch must be their break area.
After working for about a week, we had a very hot, calm day which made the Gulf of Mexico look like a glassy lake which made me think it was time to take a break and go for a jetski ride.
I mentioned that to one of the Sea Tow boat salvage guys that was now staying in our RV park and he said that beside all of the wrecked boats that were floating around out there, there were also other hazards like floating refrigerators and freezers that had been washed out of peoples homes and were often floating just below the surface of the water. Wouldn't want to hit one of those, so we left the jetskis on the trailer and went back to work.
This is a capsized boat that went floating by.
Boats moored in the Marathon Harbor didn't fare well. These boats broke loose from their mooring balls and ended up in the mangroves right behind the hospital, which was also destroyed.
The boat yards didn't do any better.
We aren't sure how many airplanes were left at the airport before the storm, but we know that the water was high enough during the storm to leave seaweed packed into the 6' fence that runs around the airport.
Before the storm, all of the foliage around the park was lush and green.
After the 150+ mph winds, all of the lush trees were stripped bare!!
The good news is, we were at the park for 6 weeks after the hurricane, cleaning up, and at the end of that time, all of the trees in the preceding picture had regrown their leaves and were again lush and green. . . . . an amazing natural recovery.
As the RV park cleanup was coming to an end, dump trucks hauled in large loads of rock to replace the rock that got washed away and Mike, the new park Work Camper, used his skill at operating a Bobcat to spread it around while his friend Jill helped him plant over 350 new plants to replace the plants lost to the storm.
We helped repair and replace damaged electrical systems, surveillance cameras and wi-fi hot spots around the park.
We also put together a new frame for the swimming pool equipment cover and I made a new cover.
After 6 weeks of hard work, the park looked better than it did before the hurricane.
We were glad we went back to the RV park after the hurricane to help with the repairs.
When things were finally looking normal at the park again, we packed up and headed out onto the road for our annual winter travel adventure.
I will try to keep you posted on this winter's travels as we discover new things, but it seems like we are always so busy that there is never any time to put the next chapter of the Blog together.
We hope you have Happy Holidays and that you will stay in touch.
Tom & Suzie
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