30A Hurricane Isaias Update

I hope you all had a great weekend! It was an eventful one around here, and I know many of you read here and not my Instagram so I wanted to share some Hurricane Isaias updates for you all from the 30A east-side area (about 30 miles east of landfall). First of all, we, the cats, and our home are all safe and good! And we so appreciate all of you that had us in your thoughts and prayers! I thought I’d share a bit of how the week looked (since I had initially planned to share our dining room and kitchen reveals) and how those plans got derailed.

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I shared this checklist online and got feedback from many that it was helpful (since so many down here are new to the area) so figured I’d share here in case someone finds even one tip that is helpful!

Not gonna lie. There were some scary moments and some really weird noises all night. But newer homes in the area are built for this and the hurricane code is pretty strict. We lost power around 8:30 pm but thankfully our generator kicked-in and we still had WiFi. The worst of the storm ended around 10pm but it was still very windy. It was weird to look out into the pitch black and clearly see which homes had generators. We weren’t prepared for either the sound of the storm or the sound of the generators running all around us through the night and day. Both can be very eerie!

Our neighborhood and community is incredible. So many people willing to help others in any way they possibly could. Clean-up crews, charging stations for those without power, people making extra coffee for those that couldn’t make their own without power. It was great to see! Since we had the generator we were able to store food, medicine, and charging for our friends and neighbors that needed it.

Once we felt it was safe to do so, we drove around the neighborhood on our golf cart to assess the damage and help people as we could, particularly for those that had evacuated and couldn’t check on the well-being of their own homes. For the most part, it seemed like the most damage was to landscaping, but there were trees on several homes (thankfully none through the roofs that we saw), fences downed by trees, and a window out at one home. There were also a crazy high number of trees in yard either uprooted or leaning at a 45 degree angle. You can also see Kurtis on the golf cart path we take to Starbucks moving limbs because we couldn’t get through. It’s still a mess as of this morning but at least passable with caution.

Here’s our backyard. The main area mostly lost leaves that would have likely dropped later this fall. But again, so little severe damage thankfully.

Our front live oak tree is leaning pretty badly but I think it can be saved with some stakes and bracing. I only had one of the holly trees snap out back but that can relatively easily be replaced.

To the left of the pics above though, we did lose some rather large trees behind the front trees. Here are some pics from behind when we looked from the golf course side.

With all the tall pines, there was pine straw everywhere. The number one comment I also heard was about the tiny debris all over every surface of the houses and cars. It’s like micro leaves spotwelded to every single surface. The power washers and window cleaning companies are going to be busy for months with this mess! This was the end of the street, where you can see it almost became a field of pine straw at the turn.

Power was restored about 20 hours later, close to sunset the following day, which was great because we had lost WiFi service several hours prior. This area has spotty and average cell service on even the best of days, so you can only imagine how awful it was during this storm. We would have to drive to the Publix parking lot to communicate with our friends and family. But when the power came back up, the WiFi did along with it.

Now that power has been restored, the sound of generators has been replaced with the sound of chainsaws throughout the community.

I’ve received a lot of questions about the beaches as well. The biggest issue is the storm surge we received. But as mentioned above, our dunes protect our little area so much and many of the homes so much. Unfortunately some of them were washed out, along with staircases that take you down to the beach. This is a more extreme example of the erosion and damage that our friend Sean let me share. But there are still a lot of beach access points that are still intact (the county has closed several of them for assessment for the time being). Towns like Rosemary Beach and Alys Beach are almost fully open again (their beaches are still closed – meaning their access points) but further west and closer to the eye, spots like Seaside and Watercolor are more likely to reopen today or tomorrow (power was thankfully just restored there)! But their beach access points had some of the worse damage so that will take time. With this being such a tourist-dependent area, they are working around the clock to safely get things up and running again. The county has advised the beaches are all open, there just may be limited amenities or access over the next few days.

The Prominence community where we have our rentals Hola Beaches and Hola Beaches Casita, which were much closer to the water and the eye, were also relatively unscathed. There were trees down, and power was not restored until last night, but we heard there was nearly no structural damage to any of the homes there! We anticipate the pools there will be reopened either today or tomorrow.

If you have a trip planned down here in the coming week, I’d reach out to the property manager to get their take on the particular property you will be staying in. It truly varies by property. The west end of 30A has much more damage, and areas still without power or WiFi. I anticipate that should be forthcoming in the next day or two, but only the utility companies can answer that. But I’d also follow the towns you plan to visit on Instagram, as they have all been very active in giving updates so you can make the best decision for your vacation! The beaches will also likely be operating under a red or double red flag (meaning you can’t get in the water on the latter) for the next few days until they can assess debris in the water. The county has great updates on flag status and live beach cams here if you want to check any particular area out along 30A. This beach is the one we frequent for sunset, and has areas without stairs so still very accessible and the county has confirmed all amenities are usable and there is little debris. It’s actually surprising to see how very calm all the beaches are today. Regardless of what you decide, please just be patient knowing what many have been through down here (and know that a lot of areas didn’t have WiFi or power most of the weekend so could not answer phones, etc.).

We ended the weekend with a text from my wallpaper installer asking if they could come work on the powder bath that day. They had had some cancellations, and still didn’t have power at their own home, so they were wanting to work and get out of the house. I told them absolutely, and as of last night, the powder bath is wallpapered and I love how it turned out! I’ll be sharing that space soon since it’s a quick one for me to photograph.

We are very blessed to have made it through this storm relatively unscathed, when I know so many people did not. Thank you again for all of your thoughts and prayer and checking in on us. I know there are many more that still need those prayers in our area!

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