Safetymom - Need Your Help Re: Hurricanes - Long!!!

[DNBois]

Safetymom -
First and foremost, my thoughts and prayers go out to you and all FL residents during this difficult time and we all hope and pray that Ivan stay away!!
DH and I, along with my in-laws are scheduled to leave on 9/18 - they are going 7 nights and we are going for 10. We have contemplated cancelling or rescheduling this trip again (an earlier planned trip was also rescheduled from March of this year due to DH's kidney stones issues). These hurricanes have not really put us in the vacationing spirit, knowing that all these people are without homes and power and a donation to the Red Cross just doesn't seem to cut it - because of this reason, I have no problem with waiting until things in FL are settled.
We decided we will wait until Monday and take it from there but DH's father recieved a couple of phonecalls from his co-worker who told him not to believe what everyone is saying - that the Orlando area and even Disney are in serious trouble - water everywhere, lots of trees down, peope standing in long lines to get gas, bread and other important staples in Orlando. . .it was suggested that this month is definitely not a good time to go so they are cancelling.
To make a long story short (which I have not done), what is the damage and do you have pictures (perhaps just to clarify the situation) and also, what is your feeling about tourists visiting at such a awkward time, when most residents need the resources that FL can provide, including hotel rooms.
Any insight to those of us who had planned on coming down this month would be very helpful - thanks so much!!!

 

[ruttie]

I am not safety mom but maybe I can help.. as long as a hurricane is not forcasted to come and local evacuations are not in place, and as long as you are staying on disney... come on down.. Yes orlando got hit hard there is alot of streets flooded in certaun neighborhoods but power seems to have stayed on to much of orlando this time a few places without but if you are staying on disney proper no problem... along the east coast where I am at Yes there is no power people are standing inline in a dark grocery store that has a generator to run the registers and buying stuff and yes there is NO GAS around here so we are staying put until we are told that gas and power are restored.. I have been very voal about ppeople staying away but that was when all of eastern florida was told to evacuate and a hurricane was scheduled to arrive in a few days i could not fathom why anyone would come when every one is getting out!! But I would not cancel your plans just yet if you are staying on disney most of us evacuees have left there to go home and florida could use your tourist dollars to rebuild but be preared that a hurricane may pop up and if that happens i would advise you to get out as quickly as possible for your own sanity as i know many were stuck for more days than planned with little food and power... hope this helps and that you can make it here for a safe vacation.....

 

[safetymom]

If you are staying on WDW property then I would say come on down.

If you are staying off property I would find out how the area was affected where you are planning on staying.

My area for the most part has power, gas, food. There are areas that are hard to get around.

I don't have a problem with visitors coming to the area but I don't like when they start to feel that they deserve a perfect vacation forgetting the fact that two major hurricanes have come through Florida.

This is Florida, hurricanes do happen.

I don't have pictures of the destruction because I feel the pain when I see the damage. I don't want to remember all the pain and suffering some folks are living through. Sorry and I know it seems strange that I don't have photos of that.

I hope you have a great time in Florida on your vacation.

 

[mousebrat]

We just got back from WDW last night. There were a number of trees down after Frances. You will be able to tell that Frances and Charley had been to WDW for some time to come, but most of the damage seemed to be outside the parks.

The airport seemed to be running smoothly when we left last night. One Delta gate had a major roof leak, but the airport seemed fairly intact.

One thing to keep in mind is that the central Florida economy is driven by tourism and has really been hurt with these storms. Most Disney and other tourism employees are hourly workers. Simply put, if there are no tourists then there are no hours. Going to Florida at this time will help keep the economy going and provide workers with the hours they need to earn the money to recover from these storms.