Preparing to leave on morning of September 12 -- storm shutters in place
The furniture and plants moved from the upstairs deck to the downstairs.
Last view of our house as we left -- 2:00 pm September 12.
Getting out just in time -- that's the edge of our driveway closest to the camera -- the water is rising both from the South (straight ahead) and the West
Flood gauge showing water has retreated from the 11 ft. high - Sunday Sept. 14
Main road onto Island under several feet of water -- Sunday, Sept. 14
September 14 -- water is still very high -- a neighbor waded in and took some photos of some island homes
Our first view of boat after the storm -- the water is still so high that the docks and finger piers are covered -- but our boat has survived!
Others in the marina were not so lucky -- rising with the waters then coming to rest on top of finger piers as the water went down.
Watergate Marina was very hard hit -- many, many boats damaged and sunk with piers disintegrating.
Some of the boats came loose completely -- that's our driveway on the left -- two sailboats in our neighbor's yard.
First view of Dolphin's Rest - Monday September 15.
Lot's of branches down -- 2 60 ft. sycamores in the backyard of our neighbor to the right came down.
The rear of our house.
When one sycamore fell, it's root system pulled our side fence down.
The resting height of the flood waters marked on our garage door.
Our garage / warehouse before the storm and before we moved most of the expensive inventory upstairs.
The huge amount of stuff and plants left downstairs as we left before the storm.
The first view after the storm -- note metal shelves along the wall that have collapsed and the general tossing of everything that was left -- of course all was soaked.
We had carefully raised everything valuable left downstairs to at least 3 feet off the ground. The water came to five feet.
Simply tackling the clear-out was overwhelming -- we ended up hiring help and still spending 3 entire days emptying the downstairs.
The death of "Flipper" our golf cart -- carefully moved inside to protect it from the "winds." Not much we could do about the water.
Nearly finished with the removal.
Our downstairs lobby/office after the cleanout.
What it looked like before. The book shelves were particle board and disintegrated and collapsed. All of the books were lost -- but the model ships floated.
The office side after clear out.
What it looked like before. We had backed up all of the computers -- but again, left them on the tables -- so all were lost.
The aftermath of a Hurricane -- unbelievable trash moved to the curb.
The sycamore with the brown trees just to the right of center, had to be removed -- the roots had been undermined and it was leaning dangerously.
This is the brush removed from our lot -- not including the tree.
And lots of books.
The worst of the piles in front of the house -- there were 3 massive pickups of storm trash made by the city.
