Tropical Storm Colin

Note to self:

Do not leave the JEEP window open during a tropical storm.

Tropical Storm Colin first appeared here as low,rapidly moving,rain teasing, clouds who kept their water and moved on.

The forecast called for heavy rain and moderate winds, so we weren't in hunker down mode.

Still, Colin was coming our way in a pretty direct manner, which motivated me to take care of a few hurricane season items that I had put off.

I refreshed and refilled the Hurricane Season 60 gallon plastic (food safe) barrel on the porch, so that is now checked off the list.

Out here on the frontier, when the power goes out, so does your water.

I like water.

I also did a major blueberry picking from the backyard patch. The bushes are so laden with fruit that even with the 

preColin breezes, branches were snapping under the weight.

I don't like to do massive pickings.

Part of the joy of a big blueberry patch is walking through it and just gorging on them. That makes my inner and outer primate very happy.

My fear was that the predicted heavy rains would knock most of the ripe berries to the ground and snap even more branches.

So I picked.

I did eat while I picked though, so my inner primate was pretty stoked about that.

Here's my pond/bog the morning before TS Colin arrived.

The water level is very low and the pennywort is just begging for me to toss the gappling hook in there and pull out great masses of it.

There's a post TS Colin picture later on in this tale for comparison. 

There's a point, just down hill from Cedar Key School, where the Gulf pours over the roadway on every tropical storm, ... so of course as soon as school let out (early release), I popped off my work shoes and slipped into some boots.

While I was putting on my boots, my teacher pal Cheryl stopped by ... also on her way to the flood zone.

So we walked down hill into a strong onshore flow.

At the foot of the hill, a two-lane road separates the Gulf from this little motel, ... only, on this day, there was no separation. 

The Gulf flowed up and over the road with every wave, flooding the lower motel property.

In the short time we were there, the water over the road rose from mid-calf to over the knee. 

I knew I couldn't stay too long unless I planned to stay the night, because SR-24, the only road off the island, was barely above sealevel and would soon flood.

Once they closed the road, I would be trapped, so I cut short my storm fun sooner than I would've liked.

Cheryl snagged a photo with what we thought were the Weather Channel guys, but they turned out to be the "Weather Nation" guys.

Never heard of them.

I made it off the island ahead of the road closing and waited for the storm to arrive at PFHQ.

It took awhile, but a storm that had been strangely devoid of rain, finally cut loose and we had delicious tropical flavored downpours for most of the night.

...and some BODACIOUS lightning ... the FLASH-BANG kind.

It was all over by dawn.

This is our pond on the morning after TS Colin.

The water level is nicely up for a single rain event.

This is the same flooded location ... the very NEXT DAY.

Florida :)

The frogs and I were really happy about the rain.