Matthew Survivor: This pretty little Swamp Sunflower was photographed Thursday morning just hours before the arrival of hurricane Matthew early Friday morning. It was a tense time and...

Cwilson341 Loc: Central Florida

This pretty little Swamp Sunflower was photographed Thursday morning just hours before the arrival of hurricane Matthew early Friday morning. It was a tense time and I think I just wanted to preserve something beautiful. Before the storm these flowers were close to 8 feet tall. Now they are bent over and closer to 3 feet from the ground but still blooming! We are about 25 miles inland from Daytona and were spared the devastating damage that occurred in the coastal areas. There are downed trees everywhere and of course many of them took power lines with them. Our power was just restored mid day today after 3 1/2 days but that is just a minor inconvenience compared to the losses of many in harder hit areas.

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TriX Loc: Raleigh, NC

Glad you were spared the worst of it.

Cwilson341 Loc: Central Florida

TriX wrote:

Glad you were spared the worst of it.

Thank you Trix. My heart breaks for the people that lost their homes and businesses. There is so much devastation from storms like this one. Your area was pretty hard hit wasn't it?

luvmypets Loc: Born & raised Texan living in Fayetteville NC

Beautiful photo!!!. Glad you are okay. That was a nasty storm for the east coast including us here in Fayetteville, NC. There are still many without power and flooding in many areas but things are working their way back to normal.

I hope all east coast UHH members are safe and well.

TriX Loc: Raleigh, NC

Cwilson341 wrote:

Thank you Trix. My heart breaks for the people that lost their homes and businesses. There is so much devastation from storms like this one. Your area was pretty hard hit wasn't it?

Wind not so bad (30-40 mph here), but 14" of rain on my gauge and lots of serious flooding (including my woodworking shop). No downed trees for me, but my neighbor lost his new addition to a large tree. Power out for 2 days for us inland, but I heard today that Atlantic Beach expects power back in a week. I think we were very lucky

Cwilson341 Loc: Central Florida

luvmypets wrote:

Beautiful photo!!!. Glad you are okay. That was a nasty storm for the east coast including us here in Fayetteville, NC. There are still many without power and flooding in many areas but things are working their way back to normal.

I hope all east coast UHH members are safe and well.

Thank you Dodie. It seems that the inland areas took a greater beating up your way than they did down here. I guess normal will come back but it is a storm we will all remember.

Cwilson341 Loc: Central Florida

TriX wrote:

Wind not so bad (30-40 mph here), but 14" of rain on my gauge and lots of serious flooding (including my woodworking shop). No downed trees for me, but my neighbor lost his new addition to a large tree. Power out for 2 days for us inland, but I heard today that Atlantic Beach expects power back in a week. I think we were very lucky

I think we had higher winds but not nearly so much rain. I took my rain gauge down so it wouldn't blow away so I don't know just what we got - a lot but not as much as you had. There are big trees down everywhere but I really haven't seen any that hit houses. Lots of downed power lines and blocked road though. I know some building were hit but not many this far inland. We were very lucky too.

Bill_de Loc: US

Very nice Carol. Glad you weathered the storm OK!

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Cwilson341 Loc: Central Florida

Bill_de wrote:

Very nice Carol. Glad you weathered the storm OK!

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Thank you Bill. I was here for Charley, Frances and Jean in 2004. I hoped really didn't want another one!

Jana-TAS Loc: Washington

Glad you are safe. So many people complain of our wet weather here in the Pacific NW but we can really be thankful even though we have the type of weather we do. I have a Great Aunt in Florida and for a while a good church friend in the military was in Virginia a few years ago. So I would watch the weather reports for where he was.

Cwilson341 Loc: Central Florida

Jana-TAS wrote:

Glad you are safe. So many people complain of our wet weather here in the Pacific NW but we can really be thankful even though we have the type of weather we do. I have a Great Aunt in Florida and for a while a good church friend in the military was in Virginia a few years ago. So I would watch the weather reports for where he was.

Thank you Jana. We have been very lucky in recent years. There have been some hurricane threats but I think it had been about 10 years since Florida took a direct hit. This one was scary but fortunately people took it very seriously and that probably saved a lot of lives.

Lazy Old Coot Loc: Gainesville, Florida

We got almost nothing here in Gainesville. Wind was 15 to 20 and we had 1.2 inches of rain. We get far worse from the thunder storms that are quite normal here each summer. ..... Coot

Cwilson341 wrote:

This pretty little Swamp Sunflower was photographe... (show quote)

Cwilson341 Loc: Central Florida

Lazy Old Coot wrote:

We got almost nothing here in Gainesville. Wind was 15 to 20 and we had 1.2 inches of rain. We get far worse from the thunder storms that are quite normal here each summer. ..... Coot

Coot, that is a very good thing. You didn't want any more of Matthew than necessary. We got off relatively easy but I am still a little rattled.

tbell7D Loc: Houston

A nice image Carol, and I'm glad to know that you were spared the worst of Mathew.

Chuckster72 Loc: Northern New Mexico

I'm glad you came out ok.