Today is the last day of the 2025 Atlantic hurricane season, and for the first time in a decade, a hurricane did not strike the U.S., although a tropical storm caused a lot of damage to the Carolinas, distant hurricanes caused rough oceans that resulted in damage on the East coast, and neighboring countries suffered damaging direct hits. This is much different than back in 2004, when Hurricane Jeanne scored a direct hit on Stuart, Florida on September 5, 2004 as a Category 2, with maximum sustained winds of 105 miles-per-hour. And just 3 weeks later, Hurricane Frances came ashore at the exact same spot as Jeanne as a Category 3, with maximum sustained winds of 120 mph.
My mother Mary was living in her condo here in Stuart when those two hurricanes hit. She and her friends evacuated to the complex's clubhouse for Jeanne, and they spent a miserable night there together. When Frances came along three weeks later, they all decided to stay home and take their chances. And being hard of hearing, my mother said she just slept through it. Go figure. Those hurricanes caused a lot of damage, including to my mother's condo complex, but fortunately, she and her friend's units sustained only minor damage. And by the way, I took the two photographs featured on today's blog when I came down to visit my mother in October of that year. What struck me the most was that all the plastic signs either on or in front of all the stores were gone. Nothing was labeled any more. Pretty eerie. As Dave Barry once famously wrote, living in Florida is great, except during hurricane season, which goes from June 1st to May 31st. Sometimes it sure feels like it.
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