Monday Morning

Well Sunday started out awesome with cool temps and some what overcast but by late afternoon we had some very nice weather with bright sunshine and blue skies. We had a lite breakfast before we got everyone ready for our corporate worship service at Cornerstone in Sparta. Afterwards we ate lunch at the new Pizzeria in town then headed out to the Dalton/Luffman Farm where Mechelle and her folks entertained the kiddos with horseback rides and farm animals. We were there for several hours then made a stop at our "mountain mom" cabin so she could visit with Amy and the family. The kiddos were so cute with her and of course we all were concerned with IRMA as it plowed into the southern Florida coast.

Thankfully the storm had been somewhat dampened from a Cat 5 to around a Cat 3 or so when it came ashore around 4'ish. We were glued to the TV after getting home and likened the predictions of the storm losing strength the further it came inland and northward towards our area a couple hundred miles north. It was around midnight or so when the eye passed into our area and somewhat weakened further but the pictures this morning show lot of damage to trees and power lines and thousands of folks were without power in our areas. The structure damage didn't seem to be as significant as once feared from the pictures we saw on the internet. Hopefully that holds true.

The storm is continuing northward but the winds and rain are still in the Tampa Bay area as well as north Florida. The storm should be down graded today to a tropical depression as it moves northward and we may even get some of the wind and rain here in the mountains later today and tomorrow. There are curfews in most of the Florida counties until damage assessments can be made to make sure the areas are safe from down power lines. We are hoping to get some word on how are abodes weathered the storm as I have two large oak trees at our house. I saw pictures of where large trees were uprooted and lots of limbs laying about but no word on if any damage was done to them. I hope the trees caused no damage to the neighbors homes and I'm sure I must remove them when I get back to Florida if they made the it through the storm.

There were lots of power outages in the area but as of now no real damage to structures as I write, LATER