Hi there! Usually I do a coffee date post on Fridays, but I’m all discombobulated this week. It IS Friday, right? We’ve had an eventful couple of days here… but we’re fine, our house is fine, and our friends are fine. We’re VERY lucky.
But, we had a tornado! Actually a couple tornadoes went through our county. We got a tornado warning, turned on the TV, and they were showing the tornado live, as it was caught on a traffic cam. On the other side of the screen they showed a map of the county and where the tornado was going.
It was scarily close to us, but we could see on the map that it would stay to the west and was moving north. Remember- Florida houses have no basements! Everyone in the path was urged to get into their bathtubs.
Just about all our destruction from Milton came from these tornadoes. Most of the county is fine, but the areas in the path of the tornado were obviously devastated. The schools were closed Wednesday, Thursday, and they’re closed again today because so many people are without power, and they’re still making sure all the schools are structurally sound.
Seeing the damage so close to home, and then all the flooding and wind damage on the west coast, makes me feel a little guilty- but we really had no issues from this storm (other than being temporarily scared by the tornado warning.) We had no damage and didn’t lose power. I had a little unexpected vacation from work (we were closed for a couple days) and well…. I kind of …. cringe… (I’m very sorry!) enjoyed it.
On Wednesday (when Milton was still out in the Gulf of Mexico) my daughter asked if her friend could sleep over. Sure! Because it’s always a good idea to be in charge of someone else’s kid in a natural disaster, right?
I picked up her friend and we stopped at Target for last minute supplies. Remember my storm snacks? Well, the girls took a dim view of the Lesser Evil popcorn, keto plant-based cereal, and sugar-free chocolate chips. They loaded up the cart with more “appropriate” supplies.
I took the opportunity to get a couple more candles. I figured, if we’re going to be stuck in the house, it might as well smell good, right? I had such a good time smelling them all (I always think of the Girl Next Door Fall Extravaganza candle sniffing when I do this.) I love all the names…
But this was my favorite:
I ended up choosing these two:
By the way, did you know that money spent during a storm doesn’t really count? We were throwing things into the cart with reckless abandon. My husband wasn’t too pleased (especially with the mocha marshmallow coffee.) But we were ready to hunker down.
The hunkering didn’t last long! By Thursday morning the worst of the storm had passed, and we were left with a beautiful, breezy day. We even opened our windows (for the first time since… March?)
It wasn’t exactly COOL. But it was less humid, and we enjoyed the windows open until 11 am, when I realized I was roasting and we had to turn the AC back on.
Since I had a bonus day off of work, I decided to start working on my blog to fix the sidebar problem. So if you never hear from me again, you’ll know what happened. No, just kidding- I backed it up! Hopefully I can fix the current issue and also clean up a few other things that have been bugging me.
Now, back to regular life! All our friends on the west coast evacuated. Stephany went to Ocala; two more friends drove all the way to South Carolina, and others flew up to New Jersey. We’ll be anxiously awaiting word from them on how their homes fared in the storm. We’re so close to the end- PLEASE, no more hurricanes!
Have you ever been through a tornado?
Do you have a favorite fall candle scent?
Top photo by Greg Johnson on Unsplash
33 Responses
I’m glad to hear an update from you, I was concerned about tornados! NOT fun. I’m glad you weren’t affected too harshly.
The tornadoes were the worst part of this storm (at least, in our area.) A lot of people in our area were affected by them- but our neighborhood is fine.
I’m so glad to hear you made it through safe, with no damage, and your power still on! Milton seemed so scary, but so far, people seem to have fared ok. So grateful for that!
We do get tornadoes up here, it’s mandatory family time in the basement when that happens.
I think overall Milton wasn’t as bad as originally predicted, although some areas have a lot of damage, of course. I think it helped that it veered a little south of Tampa.
I wish we had a basement!
I was hoping for an update from you. I had heard about the tornadoes, and honestly, I have never heard of such a thing happening in a hurricane. And here they were, in your area! I’m so glad you’re okay and that everyone is safe. I have been very worried about Stephany; I saw footage from her city and it was just awful.
Tornadoes don’t happen where we are now, but they happened a few times in Alberta, and one summer when I was a kid, visiting in Saskatchewan, one touched down very close to where we were. Terrifying!
Stephany is fine- they are headed back to Tampa today. Of course she won’t know the damage to her home and her mom’s home until they get there. I hope she gives us all an update soon!
Apparently there were dozens of tornadoes in Florida from this storm, which is unusual. And there were fatalities but not as many as you might think. So… it’s over now.
I’m so glad to hear you’re ok!! I’ve been thinking so much of you and other Florida bloggers.
A bit unusual about the tornadoes? Is this known to happen with a hurricane? I’ve never heard of it.
Obviously I’ve never seen a tornado and I’m very blessed to live where there are very few natural disasters, if it happens it’s flooding (but we’re never affected since we live on a hill) or storm damage in terms of fallen trees and debris.
I think there’s always a possibility of tornadoes during a hurricane, but I don’t think it ever happens this much. At least, we’ve never experienced it before.
I want to live where you live! We’ve been trying to figure out where to live to avoid natural disasters- it seems like everywhere has something.
Yikes! A tornado! What a rough season this has been for Florida. I hope things are nice and calm after this. Hearing about your daughter having a friend over during this storm reminds me of a time when I went out to my cousin’s house when a blizzard was in the forecast. We had had many blizzards that winter and I was tired of being stuck at home with no one to hang out with, so we schemed and decided I’d go to my cousin’s house. My parents were not thrilled – but then we ended up getting basically snowed in for 3 days so it worked out perfectly for me and my parents were maybe happy to just have my younger sister to deal with.
I’ve luckily never seen a tornado. There have been tornados close to where I live but it has never impacted me personally thank goodness!
Yes, the girls were tired of being stuck at home (they get bored when there’s no school) so I figured they might as well hang out together.
Things look nice and calm for now- I checked! No more storms heading toward us.
I’m so glad you, your family, and your home are all okay. Tornadoes must be terrifying and it’s horrific what so many people are dealing with right now.
We once had a family who had to stay overnight during a blizzard. They had come up to visit but couldn’t make it safely home. There were 7 or 8 of us in our tiny apartment (where we moved our mattress out daily), so you can imagine piling that many people into the space but it was soooo fun!
Ha, that does sound kind of fun- it was a blizzard party!
I’m so glad you’re ok! Tornadoes are really scary though — I’ve never seen one up close but I lived in Tulsa, Oklahoma for a couple years after college and went through a few tornado warnings where I had to hunker down in the bathtub (no basements there either and I was in a first floor apartment thankfully).
I don’t blame you for being excited for some unexpected time off work! I mean obviously it’s terrible that a hurricane had to hit to make that happen but it’s nice that you were able to just stay home!
Wait. There are no basements in Tulsa Oklahoma??? Don’t they get a LOT of tornadoes there? That sound very scary!
I’m so glad you are okay and that you were able to. make the best out of a scary situation. My loved ones in Florida all made it through okay, fortunately.
Love that Introvert candle. My favorite scent!
Yes, obviously not everything made it through this storm- but everyone we know is fine.
And, that candle. I laughed so hard. Too bad I didn’t really love the scent, so I didn’t buy it.
MUFFIN!! You are a true delight.
I heard about those tornadoes and it made me so sad. I feel like if you deal with hurricanes, you should get a pass on tornadoes. Maybe that’s something you can do when you have that controlling weather superpower. I am glad everyone is safe and your house is unharmed.
Oh, don’t worry. When I can control the weather we will NOT be having hurricanes and tornadoes at the same time!
The tornado warnings were the worst – there was a tornado in Weston and one in Southwest Ranches and I’m like omg, we’re just east of BOTH of those so we must be next!!! Thankfully it didn’t hit but yeah – no basement. We use my closet as tornado shelter just bc there are no windows!!
Unlike you I did not have any fun on those two days, lol. I wasn’t really ‘off” of work but trying to cram work in while home with stir crazy children and let’s just say I’M GLAD IT’S OVER!!! Mild COVID PTSD there, too.
Yeah- if I had been trying to work at home with three kids, I don’t think I would have enjoyed it either. Instead I was sniffing candles in Target with two teenagers, which was a nice switch from work.
I have actually been through a hurricane even though I’ve only ever lived in the UK. It was in 1987 and I lived in Kent right in the middle. Literally every tree on some hills was blown down and the one in our garden was. I have never been through anything as terrifying as when it got a tile off our house roof and you could feel the vacuum tugging and tugging at the roof as it went over. Then in 2005 we were in the city when the Kings Heath Tornado happened – people’s houses were destroyed and we had to walk home from quite a way away so we had to walk down the high street not knowing if our newly bought house was OK (it was). So there you go – surprise reports from me, I’d imagine.
Well yes- I didn’t expect you to say you’d been through a hurricane! I guess tornadoes can happen anywhere? I don’t even really know. But, that does sound terrifying.
I approve of the cookies n’cream chocolate and the sour strips. The girls did a good job. It’s time for hurricane season to end and for Florida Open Window Season to start.
My track record with natural disasters is that I was born in California (earthquakes) and grew up in Illinois (tornadoes) but never experienced either until we moved here. We’ve had a couple of really weak earthquakes and a few tornadoes.
We didn’t have any tornadoes growing up in IL either- well there was one at summer camp but I think it was a warning- it wasn’t like we were hit with a tornado. I remember tornado drills being a big thing though. I’v definitely never been through an earthquake.
Yes- we’re ready for Open Window Season!
Money and calories both don’t count during storms! That is absolutely the rule. It’s like the road-trip rule only more so. You can tell your husband I totally agree. I do love that introvert candle.
Seriously, though, I’m glad you’re all all right. I agree with NGS that “if you deal with hurricanes, you should get a pass on tornadoes.”
Yes, it seems unfair to get BOTH. I’m glad YOU’RE alright! You were right in Milton’s path. I’m cautiously optimistic that we’re done with hurricane season for this year (?)
I am so glad that you are okay! At first I though that header photo was one that you took and I was like SHEESH that is way to close for comfort! We have had tornadoes in CA but they are very few and very far between and often are like electrical bursts, which can do some damage, but to me are not quite as scary (or maybe I am just naïve).
Kyria, I was not that far off from being able to get a photo like that on my run Wednesday morning- which would have been cool but a little too terrifying.
glad to hear you and the family are doing well, even enjoying a bit of the work break. we had a lot of typhoon warnings in manila, usually just stay at home as there’s a lot of rain and wind. i don’t like the feeling of not knowing what will happen though.
So glad you are safe! MY MIL ended up staying with friends of friends and is going back to her house today.
I’m not much into candles, but think I’d like that introvert one!
We’re used to tornado warnings here–I know how scary that can be! Glad nothing bad happened to you. I am worried about the Gulf Coast tho–they really have taken a beating lately.
My kids always used to tell me that their friends didn’t want to come over because we didn’t have any ‘good’ snacks. I feel your pain…lol
Oh man, for some reason, I didn’t realize your area got hit with so many tornadoes! I know they were an issue on the west coast. I saw a video on FB of someone who filmed a tornado that shattered his HURRICANE PROOF sliding glass doors. (I mean, filming during a tornado is crazy but it was pretty interesting footage.) I’m glad you guys were okay and didn’t lose power! And yes, money does NOT COUNT during hurricanes. And healthy eating just flies right out the window for me. Whatever I need to help me get through the hurricane and the aftermath is what I depend on!
Oh my gosh, a tornado- and no basement. Scary!! Glad you are okay.
Love the introvert candle!