It has been a nerve-wracking week for people living in Florida. Irma, a killer hurricane with 185 miles per hour winds, was headed towards Florida, specifically somewhere between Miami and Palm Beach, not too far from where my sister and my condo is located. My tenants down there were a bit nervous, as well they should be. Then Friday night, the hurricane moved further west and weakened, and is now moving along the west coast of Florida with sustained winds of 120 miles per hour, still a category 3 hurricane, but not the killer storm of a few days ago. You hope and pray it won't hit you, but if your prayers are answered, it still hits somebody else. A very sad truth. It made me think of other hurricanes, both hits and misses, that threatened Stuart in the past. I remembered a photograph taken of me with a copy of The Stuart News, back in August of 1995, when Hurricane Erin "hit home," found it, and it can be seen in the photograph on the left.
Actually, the headline was a bit of artistic license. Hurricane Erin actually hit north of Stuart, between Fort Pierce and Vero Beach, and was a Category 1 storm, the weakest kind of hurricane. Nonetheless, I watched the hysterical, non-stop weather broadcast with my mother and sister all night long, until my mother and sister both said to hell with it and went to bed. The hurricane landed around midnight, and when I looked outside and just saw just mildly strong winds and nothing else, I went to bed, too. The next day was bright and sunny, and we all went to Stuart Beach. My mother Mary and sister Susan, seen here with her "boogie" board, are in the photograph on the right. Later in the week, we drove down to meet Susan's sister-in-law Nancy and her kids at a restaurant in Boca Raton, the half-way point between Stuart and Miami, where Nancy and Willie lived. Their house in south Miami was destroyed by Hurricane Andrew, and they spent 2 years living in a trailer in their driveway while it was being rebuilt, and so when we brought up the subject of a Category 1 hurricane, Nancy was quite dismissive. I was in Florida when Hurricane Andrew hit, and it was very scary to watch that thing barreling toward south Florida on the television, too. A few days later, when I was being driven to the airport in the morning, the only other vehicles on the road seemed to be army vehicles, heading to south Miami to help with the massive destruction and displacement of people.
Hurricane Erin was a category 1 hurricane and a near miss, but 9 years later 2 hurricanes hit Stuart dead on. Hurricane Francis hit Stuart over Labor Day weekend in 2004, a Category 2 storm with winds of 105 miles per hour. My mother and her neighbors, fearing a storm surge from the nearby St. Lucie River, spent the night in the condo complex's clubhouse. It was a horrible experience, and they all said they would rather die than spend another evening together like that. And they got their chance. Just 3 weeks later Hurricane Jeanne, a Category 3 hurricane with winds of 120 miles per hour (the current strength of Hurricane Irma, I might add), made a direct hit in Stuart, causing lots of damage, especially along the ocean and rivers in the area. My mother and her neighbors all stayed in their condos for this one. My mother, who was hard of hearing by this time, just went to bed and woke up the next morning like nothing had happened. She told me she noticed nothing different that night. I came down from Denver a week or two later and there was quite a bit of damage. Our favorite restaurant, Jack Baker's Lobster Shanty, seen in the photo of my mother and sister on the left in happier days, was heavily damaged and never reopened. Buildings along the beach were in ruins. Hurricanes are definitely not fun.
Driving around Stuart, the thing I noticed first was the absence of signs. All are made out of plastic, and were the first things to go in the 120 mile per hour winds. I took my mother on a ride up Indian River Drive, which runs along the Inter-coastal Waterway, not far from the ocean, and had to turn around when we encountered a very large cabin cruiser sitting right in the middle of the road. Scary. In the photograph on the right, by the way, shows my sister sitting at the bar of The Admiral's Table, another favorite of ours, which was located on that very same Indian River Drive. It also was heavily damaged, and never reopened. Up until that point, my dream was to live in a house or condo on the beach. After Jeanne, I realized that my mother's condo was quite close enough to the ocean, thank you very much. Sadly, my mother's health took a turn for the worse, and she moved up to live with me in Denver in early 2005. We went back for visits two or three times a year, however, until she passed away in 2009. In October of 2005, I went to Europe on a vacation and when I got back, took my mother (who was staying with my sister while I was gone), down to Stuart. When we arrived, the power was turned off, the bedroom rug was strung over chairs, and we later found out the air conditioner on the roof was hanging by a thread. While I was in Europe, Hurricane Wilma, another Categroy 3 with winds of 120 miles per hour, went up the east cost of Florida, causing lots of destruction in her wake. That was the last storm to hit Stuart, for now, and the worst for damage, at least for us personally. This storm is probably the closest to what the people on the west coast of Florida are experiencing form Hurricane Irma now, and my heart goes out to them. Good luck people!
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