It has been a remarkable summer. We closed the Paradise NEWS office on August 12th to escape the summer heat, mostly in Summit County, Colorado. The trip was PERFECT. We spent most of our anniversary week in Buena Vista, Colorado, where we soaked in natural hot springs, hiked in the mountains, and got massaged daily. What a luxury. We enjoyed a side trip to Kearney, Nebraska where we celebrated Renee’s birthday with friends and watched the sun totally eclipse before our eyes.
Denver felt as hot as home after the eclipse, but when we ran into sleet and hail on our return to the mountains, we knew we were headed in the right direction. For the third year in a row, however, we found ourselves in front of weather broadcasts all week wondering if we will make it home. This year we got back Thursday, Sept 7th, just in time to prepare for evacuation.
Irma was an unwelcome addendum to our 46th honeymoon. She stole a week from most of our lives. While we resent that, we feel blessed that we had homes to return to. All the coverage of Harvey’s aftermath before Irma was born, of Irma on her way through the islands, of Jose and Maria had us prepared for the worst and on edge for almost a month. A direct hit, like they were predicting for a while could have been bad, but the meteorologists were definitely not prepared for what actually happened here. They should have been. We have seen it happen before.
Predictions of doom on the coast have generally been about storm surge. The counter-clockwise rotation of tropical storms and hurricanes means that storms coming from the east are not a threat from storm surge. The worst for us would be a storm crossing the Gulf from Mexico, coming ashore near Crystal River.
We are thrilled, after being away three weeks, then without power for 5 days, we are able to pull this October issue together pretty much on our regular publishing schedule. Our advertisers all lost a week too. Stores and restaurants also lost inventory and momentum. Employees were away. Power was out for most. Knowing that so many Americans are still suffering from the impacts of the recent storms, and the earthquakes in Mexico, we encourage you and thank you for doing what you can to help. We also want to thank the linemen from Georgia Power to ConEd that came to help their Florida brethren get power restored.
Our solar power system was no help to us during the outage. It was the first time in years we were without power for days. When the grid goes down, solar systems without big batteries are turned off, so lineworkers do not get electrocuted. We still love our $10.53 power bills and especially love driving on solar power. It makes us feel even better about living year-round in the Sunshine State. If you have questions about solar, contact us with them.
– Pete & Renee Roos