Wilma, We All Swam in Key West

We have a lot of new car's and trucks in the Florida Keys and in my neighborhood,
we just got phone lines back up.

I lost 2 cars, a motorcycle, all furniture, appliances,family photos and 4ft of plaster and drywall and electrical outlets.

About 530 am, I finally passed out sitting up after the wind dropped a bit and shifted to the north west,but only for about 1 hour.

The next thing I know Marcella is shaking me and letting me know we had a few inches of water in the lower level "Florida room"

I shot to my feet to find in the 30 seconds it took her to wake me there was now
a foot of water,Ipushed open the front door and storm shutter to find 2 more feet waiting to enter the house.

I scrambled to the street to unleash the flats skiffs from their trailers and started the engines, turned back towards the house and watched my Honda Blackbird's
headlight taste saltwater, Marcella's Ford Escape's alarm and lights were flashing
protesting the Gulf of Mexico entering the dashboard.

A Lexus across the street started wailing and the electric trunk popped open as I heard my neighbor's wife with her 3 year old granddaughter screaming in terror
"Mike what should I do?" the water was now up to my tit's in the street as she waded over to my Flats Skiff , floating in the street with a line tied to the roof rack of Marcella's car, the other skiff running and tied to the disappearing door handle of my Jeep.

Marcella came from the house with suite cases full of car titles and revolvers
and cookies for the baby.

We all climbed into the skiff and I started up Key Haven Blvd picking a few other
women and a guy that was trying to walk back to his house against the 60+mph mile per hour wind and the incoming current of the Gulf.


I dropped everyone 6 blocks up the street at a friends high ground house and putted back to my house to try to collect more stuff, dodging trash cans, plastic lawn furniture, shoes, boats and even a few floating cars.

In a couple of hours the water started to drop and I had to scramble to re-trailer
the boats.

There are about 1,000 houses in my canal neighborhood that were flooded with
1-4 feet of saltwater, all are having the walls removed as you read this, mine are done.

I pulled the Honda apart and saved it, rode it to Miami a few days ago and bought
a Pick Up Truck, put the motorcycle in the back and came back to Key West to knock out walls.

I'm fishing tomorrow, first time since Wilma and I'm looking for a good drywall/plaster man.......let me know if you hear of one, or two.