THANK GOD - Thank you Caril for posting my thanks to everyone - somehow and don't know how it happened byt I lost a great deal of my stuff located in favorites - by chance I found the disboard again - WOW its so great to be back --Norm and I sincerely appreciated all that was extended to us - with the Grace of God, we came out of it all just great compared to what so many loss - Norm and I were out of contact with the "world" for almost 5 days - we didn't know how bad Brevard County and much less Florida, Georgia was hit by Frances - even driving around, we were not prepared until we saw the news tonight - Norm and I decided to stay for a number of reasons and most of all we had 3 older seniors that were unable to be put into a shelter so we took them in - we were able to finally get them all settled into their own place and needless to say, they were all grateful that their units withstood the impact that we endured - Norm and I watched Frances come in with a fury - we saw her peel roofs off of buildings as easy as peeling an apple - we felt the sand off the beach hit 5 stories high - to try and explain all that we saw would be impossible - we didn't realize that the calm that came after she hit clocked at 124 miles per hr. that there was going to be a backlash coming in at 85 miles per hr. - it was during this time, I decided to take Tia out and let her finally run and play - I felt the winds coming and thought it was nothing - it was then somehow something flying got me right on the side of the head - I looked like my head was out of shape with the goose egg I got - before this happened of course we went to see the shop and was stunned at the mess - the huge sign had been replaced with air, fences in the back lying around like matchsticks, shingles everywhere, and of course "stuff" had been knocked off the shelves from the wind hitting against the building and of course no electricity - we loss all our flowers and the other stuff, but nothing like everyone else - We were blessed - we went to the shop today since my son had a crew come in and help us put everything back together and the landlord is already busy putting the strip mall back into order tho it will take a while to complete everything, but tomorrow we go back to work - as you all may have heard, the port is out of commission due to the sand at the port entrance - so many workers out of work due to this and we don't know when they will be dredging it open - to show you how hard the sand hit, our next door neighbor couldn't open her door due to the locks being closed with sand all through all the key holes to her door. The knob had to be broken off in order for her to get in - Norm and I went up to check the roof, which was damaged here at the condo, and found beach sand everywhere -
Amazing - I believe the most striking sight I saw was seeing a pink flamingo in our back yard and the Banana River which you cross to go to the ships, was pulled back from the shore for about 100 feet or more - we could have walked on the bottom of the river for quite a way - in fact I was so surprise to see that the bottom of the river was nothing but sand with very little debris from many years of being there - did count 20 tires that had been there for years - 2 sailboats that had been put out to protect them from the fury of Frances were laying on their sides - I found this so amazing - in all my years had never seen anything like it. Happy to report it is now back to normal and the fish are back for the herons were having a heck of a breakfast - when i spoke to Andy, I snapped I guess from pressure, tired, and most of all the lacking of my one and only cup of coffee which I hadn't had in 3 days - I finally found coffee while going out to check my son's trailor which was fine - my sister Sandra and my niece Maria suffered a great loss each in Melbourne - they still do not have electricity or water and it appears as if it will be a few more days before they do - they can not leave their homes due to looters.
They both have a great additude and one heck of faith -
Thanks for everything and with the Grace of God, we will all be back to normal soon.
Much love to all
most of all thanks for everything.
Much love always
Shirley and Norm
