South Florida residents with valley connections ride out Irma
Valley resident Ron Bowdoin’s cousin Doreen Schiffelbian lives in Jensen Beach, Florida, where she and her family have been dealing with Hurricane Irma.
The storm, one of the strongest ever to form in the Atlantic, has been creating an impact all over South Florida this weekend.
“There’s been a little bit of a high anxiety going on here,” Schiffelbian said. “You leave the news on and just grab it on an hourly basis, the more it sinks in. And the more you become anxious, and more aware of the fact that you’re in extreme danger.”
Schiffelbian said she decided not to evacuate and ride out the storm in her home near West Palm Beach.
She said the home is built to code to withstand similar types of storms. she says recently built up to code to withstand these types of storms.
Meanwhile, former Palm Springs resident Aaron Huntsman’s home is Key West, where Irma had been making an impact as early as Saturday afternoon.
He said he originally intended on evacuating to a hotel in the Tampa Bay area, but those plans quickly changed.
“They called and they cancelled, because the surge on that side of the coast,” Huntsman said. “So, we started panicking on what we were going to do because the place we live at is only at 3-foot elevation. “So, we started lifting all of our furniture. Putting furniture on top of furniture. Getting all of our belongings. And we stuck everything all the way up to the ceiling.”
While being her first hurricane in Florida, Schiffelbian said her family is no stranger to storms after going through Hurricane Sandy while living in New York.
“That was storm surge,” she said. “I have a picture of my son standing by a boathouse on the waterfront at my in-laws’ home. It was well above my son’s head. The storm surge reached at least 10 feet in its entirety near the water. That was just sheer devastation.”
But as the storm continues to move, they hope all residents of Florida remain safe.
“I think that our prayers really just need to be concentrated on the lives that are here, and nothing else,” Schiffelbian said. “Everything else, like Governor [Rick] Scott said, you can rebuild. But you can’t relive.”
Schiffelbian also recommends having all the necessary supplies in place, like hurricane shutters, boards and extra gas before hurricane season in Florida.
