Hurricane Ernesto visits Puerto Rico

[Cindy Adair]

So much rain in 12 hours that my 11 inch volume rain gauge overflowed long before Ernesto retreated. 

Muddy river from the street above poured down part of my long driveway but no dramatic landslides near me thankfully.
 

Awaiting assistance to try to right some now nearly horizontal palms

and a bunch of other ornamental/fruit trees. 
 

I won’t miss two tropical almonds that broke and fell on each other. Lots of chainsaw work awaits, but my trusty sawzall and I cleared a passageway to reach my gate. 

 

Note the big Roystonea borinquena unscathed. 
 

I got city water back this morning. Still waiting for electricity although some people not too far away have it. Until then I have a propane based portable push button generator that I use 3-4 hours a day. 

I have not yet explored my entire property, but little by little I will get there. 
 

Hoping this is the one and only Hurricane for 2024!

[Barry]

Hi Cindy

Glad you had minimal damage compared to a full blown major hurricane!
Hopefully you can get it cleaned up quickly and palms/trees straightened back up. Your farm still looks amazing! And yes hoping for a calm and safe season for everyone!

[Cindy Adair]

Thanks Barry!

After posting I looked forward to recharging all my tools and phone, but sadly my generator would not start for some reason.

I’ll figure it out tomorrow. 
 

 

[kinzyjr]

@Cindy Adair Glad to hear that you are OK.  Hope you get the generator running to make life a little easier.

[Cindy Adair]

Electricity back! 

Life will be much easier now!

On with clean up and saving as many plants as I can. 

[Cindy Adair]

I try to learn even from negative experiences and my favorite new item added to my hurricane preparedness cabinet is this workhorse of a portable fan which was a grocery store impulse buy last Spring. 
 

I used it constantly while inside (including all night) running on two D batteries that lasted the entire week. 
 

I also enjoy looking at things totally untouched such as this pretty orchid. 
 

Note the wind shredded banana leaves. 


 

My only Ficus dammaropsis (not in the photo) amazingly survived with only the loss of a few branches. 

Two hard workers did the hardest part getting the broken almond trees safely down.
 

I can only imagine the costs had I been in the States. 

They return later to cut the trunk enough to allow it to be pushed over the edge into an area that must have had a landslide in a long ago hurricane. Really it is super convenient that gravity will help get rid of all the debris. 
 

I believe the many tropical almonds are too immature to sprout which forever saves the usual messy clean up with these two trees. 
 

Today I worked to remove the leaves and smaller branches and see what survived underneath. 
 

That’s a Chrysalidocarpus lastelliana in the background which was untouched. 
 

Lots of the losses aren’t important as they were just filler plants awaiting growth of the Pritchardia Pacifica trio. 
You can see the relatively untouched one

and then the other two which I hope might survive. Nobody selling them here as far as I am aware. 
 

 

Sad for sure. I have a couple of other species of the same genus, but they are only 6 inches tall. 
 

Oh if anyone is interested, my total hours with a working generator during the one week without city power came to 18.

Even with the starter issues it helped as I did a load of wash and dried it and used my bread maker and recharged my collection of ryobi batteries- all of which made my life better for sure. 
 

Eventually I will make this entryway garden lots better and post the progress. 
 

[Cindy Adair]

Well,  guess I updated too soon.  

Electricity went out again with a brief, but hard rain. 

Hoping I don’t lose the replacement groceries I bought yesterday. 

At least more normal PR August temperatures with high of mid eighties and much cooler now. Excessive heat advisory gone. 

Using my trusty fan and battery powered lantern again tonight it seems, but not a big deal. 
 

The view of the sun setting over the ocean with mountains, tree ferns and palms still makes me feel lucky to live in the tropics!

[Dypsisdean]

3 hours ago, Cindy Adair said:

Well,  guess I updated too soon.  

Electricity went out again with a brief, but hard rain. 

Hoping I don’t lose the replacement groceries I bought yesterday. 

At least more normal PR August temperatures with high of mid eighties and much cooler now. Excessive heat advisory gone. 

Using my trusty fan and battery powered lantern again tonight it seems, but not a big deal. 
 

The view of the sun setting over the ocean with mountains, tree ferns and palms still makes me feel lucky to live in the tropics!

Just seeing this now for the first time - not sure why - my bad.

I too feel lucky to live in the tropics. And lucky that the hurricane scheduled to hit here this weekend looks to be weaker and more south than originally predicted. Hopefully the rest of our season will be uneventful.

[Cindy Adair]

Well, with my limited news exposure over the last week I had completely missed hearing about Hone headed to Hawaii.

I will certainly follow news about it now.

Happily my city electricity returned at 2 am this morning, hopefully to stay on!

I wish all those in Hawaii and elsewhere in the world all the best getting through the rest of the hurricane season!