Charley visits Orlando

As you may have heard Hurricane Charley visited Florida on Friday the 13th and passed right through Orlando when it was a category 2 hurricane. We live 10 miles from Orlando International Airport. The airport recorded gusts up to 105 mph with winds generally from 70 to 90 mph. We had these winds and the driving rain for about 45 minutes. JeLain and I are just fine. We were very lucky in that our house suffered no damage, not even a shingle missing. We had 4 small Wax Myrtle trees that came down in our yard and a Live Oak in our side boulevard was uprooted and blown over. There are trees down all over, Most houses in our neighborhood had some degree of roof damage. A few houses had windows blown out. We are likewise fortunate that there was no major damage at the school. Only one small window was broken when it was hit by a fling object and the big window in our entry way did not break, but it is bowed a little and will have to be repaired or replaced. We also had one Live Oak that blew over in the blvd at the school. We were closed on Friday but plan on being open on Monday, even though the Orange County School District announced today that they will be closed Monday and Tuesday. We were also very fortunate that we were part of half of the population of Orlando that did not lose electricity. Phone service was out for a few hours this morning and DSL just got back a couple of hours ago, but otherwise all utilities have been up and running for us.

From, Jelain and Cousin John