Rock You Like A Hurricane!!!

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

This is Brenda and Stacy with Let's Wind with Brenda and Stacy. We're back with another episode. And now that we're in hurricane season, we thought we'd bring back some of the stories that we used to tell or still tell. We lived through quite a few hurricanes.

SPEAKER_01 0:12

We didn't living in Central Florida. It was supposed to be like the safest place to live as far as hurricanes go. For Florida. Yeah, smart inland and all that stuff. But that doesn't mean we didn't feel the effects. And luckily nobody that I ever know of was harmed. It was just a property damage thing that it did take a toll. It takes a toll on you season after season after season. I feel like mentally you get, oh my God, here it comes.

SPEAKER_02 0:38

Right. You do the prepping for it. I moved to Florida in 1992, and that year was Hurricane Andrew. And in Seabring, it wasn't terrible. And I was working a night shift. So when I got up after sleeping the day, my mom was like, You didn't hear any of that? I'm like, Nope. And all they lost was a screen. But I know Hurricane Andrew was devastating to South Florida.

SPEAKER_01 0:57

It was. I know we have friends who re had to relocate and move their whole lives, you know, because of Oh, I know. Hi, Julie. I know. Oh, hurricanes and the uh devastation that they cause. It's literally no joke. I can remember living in Florida in like my family who lived here in Georgia, who, you know, lived in Virginia. They would just watch it, you know, swirling on TV. You know, or we're down there in it and prepping and doing all the things. Oh, you know, a lot of times I'd be like, oh, we're fine, you know, to make them quit worrying. I didn't know what hurricanes were like when I moved there. It was eye-opening.

SPEAKER_00 1:33

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:33

You know, for one thing. And another thing is it's a total lack of control. Right. Just oh my god, yes. Everything you can do all the prepping, you can do all of the, you know, things that you're told to do and be prepared as you think you can be. But the lack of control is just It's devastating.

SPEAKER_02 1:52

It is. It really is. I mean, my house took a hit when we had um Hurricane Charlie. And that was the first one that affected me. I was in my own home, you know, had two kids, and during the hurricane, Camille wanted to go to my mom's few streets away, so she went over there to stay with mom and dad. I feel like they always hit in the night when it's dark. And by seven o'clock, phew, there went the power. So it's out, and then we heard the big bangs during the night. I had those big tall trees in the backyard that were like three stories tall. Luckily, they all fell away from the house, but the base of those trees alone were taller than me. I mean, the yard was just a mess the next day, and I had water pouring in my living room by the slide. It was terrible, terrible. And then another one hit, and then another one hit. Remember, they were back to back. Camille graduated in 2005 and has the t-shirt that she survived. Oh. The hurricanes that made senior t-shirts at Sebring High School. Yeah. It was rough.

SPEAKER_01 2:41

It was rough. And for a lot of those, I were, you know, at the radio station. And I can remember because I was basically the only girl amongst all the guys who and none of them had kids at home. And I did. So they would always let me be home during the storm or storm time. You know, they didn't want little kids running around that radio station on top of everything else. Because wherever I was gonna be, my kids were gonna be. Right. So that was like, I don't know if they just let me out the goodness of their heart or let me out of the goodness of we don't want little kids running around up here. So I would always be able to be home. But during the aftermath, when it was safe for me to get to the station and I had the kids somewhere safe to be, then I would go in and relieve them because they would bring in cots. The radio station had to be manned no matter what. It was to where our towers, you know, it's not only like can't you lose power at the radio station, but you gotta think we have towers out in around the area that actually are the broadcasters. Right. You know, so they also have to keep electric running for those to work. So the city would work with the radio station to keep the power a lot of times they were generator ran at the uh sites for the towers, and then also, you know, at the radio station we would just have generators to keep our basic equipment running. Right. But the city would come by, you know, and keep us in gas for this radio station.

SPEAKER_02 3:59

It's funny you don't think of the chain reaction. I know. It's not just isolated. I was selling real estate during most of that time. Yeah. I had closings that didn't happen because Hurricane Wilma was another one that I had people down in South Florida that couldn't get to me and they didn't have the e-sign and all those different things then. One of the hurricanes, I can't remember which one it was, that took out our office where I worked at Spring Lake Realty, and I knew it was bad and trees were coming down. Lolly called me. She was my boss, she was the broker, called me up and said, You need to get down here, get your computer, anything you want. I lived, what was that, four blocks away? Maybe. And um, the ceiling had already went by the time I got there. And she's sitting there crying because that was her and her husband's business. I know they were crying their eyes out, and it took a while. We were working out of our houses. Luckily, the internet was a thing. Yeah. You know, we were able to continue to work a little bit, but it wasn't the same. It was not the same. Everything kind of fell apart.

SPEAKER_01 4:49

It is not the same. We were in the middle of um Scotty buying my house that I had built when Hurricane Irma came and it wrecked the roof. It was really the first real bad hurricane damage that we'd had. Scotty was in the process of buying it. Well, then that hurricane came, it tore up the roof. It it had damage to the house, so we couldn't close because it had to be fixed and in good condition before we could close on the house. It screwed us both up for quite some time. So that was devastating because I was ready to get the hell out of seabring, not running from hurricanes, but just for a new life to move on. Right. So it held me up, it held Scotty up for a while. I mean, it was it was awful. But again, nobody I ever knew was really hurting a hurricane. Nobody, you know, survived it. It was property damage, those things can be replaced. You know, life set us back a few months. Maybe life was meant to set us back a few months. That's true. It could have been worse.

SPEAKER_02 5:40

It could have. If we'd have for some reason been in a different area, it could have been a lot worse. Yeah. I think of those poor people with Hurricane Katrina, and it's not just Florida that they hit. Yeah, I know. Well, Milton followed me here. Yeah, you moved.

SPEAKER_01 5:51

You had rain coming out. That's right. You moved, you were running from a hurricane, basically. Right. I mean, I was coming in.

SPEAKER_02 5:59

I had still had a week left at home. I'd put in my notice at work, so I waited till the last minute, thinking, now I don't have work, I can concentrate on packing and getting rid of things. And Camille came over. If you're going, you need to go right now. People are gonna start evacuating, you're not gonna be able to go anywhere. I'm like, I'm in panic. I'm giving stuff away like crazy. You need some shampoo, you need this, everything. Tons of stuff, throwing stuff in the dumpster. I couldn't even tell you what I went. I took pictures of things that I knew were going to Camille's just in case. I felt like if anything happened, I had some stuff with me, some stuff there. But you know, it's still just stuff. It's all stuff in the big scheme of things. I mean, of course, there's baby pictures and things I didn't want to lose, but it is just stuff. You know, everybody was okay. And then do you remember they did lose power during Milton and nobody was answering their phone? And I'm here, so I'm starting to panic. The first one to respond to me was Lark. That's my grandson. He was the first one to respond, and I screenshotted that response and still have it. I just saw it recently when I was going through pictures.

SPEAKER_01 6:52

Oh my goodness.

SPEAKER_02 6:53

Because I was I was in such a panic, but he was able to let me know everybody was okay and because you never know. It just takes, you know, a wall coming down to I mean, kill somebody, really. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 7:01

I know there was one of them, I can't remember which name that, you know, we took everything out of my walk-in closet in Seabring and put mattresses in there. It spent the night in the, you know, walk-in closet. It had no windows or it was the safest place in the house. You know, me and the kids and our friend Terry just camped out in the closet for the night. Had batteries in the radio and batteries in a little light in there, and of course they had their shit charged up so they could play their video games and mommy sippy cups and all the essentials.

SPEAKER_02 7:29

All the essentials. It's like I can survive it until the power goes out, and then I have to admit that's when I turn into a big baby, but I would tell myself it could be so much worse. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 7:38

Oh, I know.

SPEAKER_02 7:39

I know it's just an inconvenience. It's temporary. You know, we always rebuilt the Army Corps of Engineers after the bad one that I had all that damage, they came out and tarped the roof. Well, the nails they put in the roof made it worse, and it started raining then in the kids' bedrooms. Oh my god. So I know. And the insurance agent, though, when she came out, she was so good to me. She even looked around. I don't know what she was kind of assessing, but she's like, You're a single mom, aren't you? And back then I was. I said, Yeah. She goes, I'm gonna make sure all this is taken care of for you. And I was like, Well, thank you very much. But then, you know, I had an ex-husband, his name was still on the mortgage, and it was one of those where when the check came, I needed his signature. He was living in Gainesville. So it's like pace to know people. Cochrane Brothers roofing was wonderful because Donna Cochrane was a scout mom. So I knew her. So she sent the guys out to go ahead and do my roof. I got off lucky. I was very lucky, but it took a lot of time, I feel like, in between. Everybody needed a new roof. Everybody was back, it was backed up.

SPEAKER_01 8:34

Oh, yeah, it really, really was. So I remember I hated FEMA that uh Hurricane Irma because our roof needed replaced. Well, what you may or may not know is that your insurance company, when they come out to assess everything, they also assess the age of your roots. You only get the value of the roof you own, not the value of a new root. Is that what happened to you too?

SPEAKER_02 8:54

Girl, I got so lucky. It was they went by like the deductible was 2% what you paid for the house back then. And mine was dirt cheap. It wasn't what it was worth. Because I remember Lolly saying, You got off lucky. I'm like, damn right I did. Because even after the deductible was removed, I was still able to cover everything, the carpet and the roof, all the wood around that sliding glass door and back porch. Yeah, I won't say any names. I had a friend who had like a ding on her car, and evidently FEMA had set up a place. I wouldn't even take it up there. She said she got in the line, went through the thing, they like handed her a check for three thousand dollars. Shut up. I'm like, what? That's bullshit. And I want to think FEMA's there to help if you have no other option.

SPEAKER_01 9:30

I didn't have the gap between what entrance covered and what it needed. They ended up helping me basically get a um low percent loan. A low percent.

SPEAKER_02 9:40

She said, I'm a single mom.

SPEAKER_01 9:42

I know. I was just grateful at the time because I just had our heart set on getting things done and getting me getting out of there and Scotty getting in the house and all the things done. So even after I moved to Georgia, and then even after I moved in here, I was still paying on that stupid roof. I remember you saying that. That stupid roof. Goodness, that's awful. I do remember you saying that. So, anyway, so as far as I'm concerned, I have paid all the money I'm paying for Scott's house.

SPEAKER_02 10:07

Well, I figured those Florida homes are gone now, they're sold, they're out of our hair. We don't have to worry about those either.

SPEAKER_01 10:11

Yeah, well, I mean, just Scotty lives there. And then your babies that Oh yeah, Camille had to get a new floor and everything. I live down there. I don't know. I mean, it's worth the price, I guess, of Florida living. Well, is it? I know. I don't miss it either.

SPEAKER_02 10:24

I'm just not a Florida girl.

SPEAKER_01 10:25

Jeff talks about being down in Florida on their vacation, you know, in a Dana Hotel or whatever, and you hot and sweaty and you get in the shower, and you get out from the shower and you're hot trying to dry off and you you get hot and sweaty. You know, it's like humid. Bye, Florida. Georgia, what you got? Bring me a snowstorm. I know. Bring me something I can play in and look forward to and then come in the house. I came up here for snow and ice.

SPEAKER_02 10:48

Since I've been here, I didn't realize the ice storms were a thing. Well, but I'm learning. Rarely. I can handle that better for some reason. You know, once I'm where I'm gonna stay for the night, I'm good. Oh yeah. Yeah, the last one we had I stayed at work, which was fine. Um, Gia had passed away, and I did tell my boss I said things might have been different if that cat was still alive. I don't know. I would either had to take her with me.

SPEAKER_01 11:06

Yeah. Or risk your life and limb to come home.

unknown 11:08

I know.

SPEAKER_01 11:09

Because apparently I'm not trusted to babysit a cat for one night.

SPEAKER_02 11:12

I don't think you could have peeled her like I did.

SPEAKER_01 11:14

I we'd have done it. We'd have made it through.

SPEAKER_02 11:16

You'd have heard her doing it. You would have skipped her mess in one day. She had to have it or she'd been vomiting all over the place. I don't know how we did it.

SPEAKER_01 11:24

I know, I don't think I could do it now, like at this age.

SPEAKER_02 11:27

I don't want to do it. Well, I took my dad to the airport too. He had already planned a trip to Indiana. I don't know if we discussed that once before. I called the Sarasota airport and said, Are you do you have flights out? Because I know a lot of them were grounded. And they said, if you can get over here, the flights are going. I was like, oh boy, I gotta drive through Zulful Springs and all that. And when I did, uh because of the traffic lights being out, there were army people on the corners and it looked like a war zone. And I'm thinking, Dad, I don't know if I'm gonna be able to get you over there. But we made it and I called mom and she said all she wanted she wanted another bag of ice and taco bell because our restaurants were closed.

SPEAKER_01 11:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 11:58

We didn't have that. So I grabbed her what I could and took it to her because she refused to leave that house. She stood her ground and decided to just stay in there.

SPEAKER_01 12:05

I never evacuated either. I never went to a a shelter or anything. No, I didn't do that.

SPEAKER_02 12:09

But I went to my friend Amy's after one of them because we didn't have power and she's like, What? They were in Okeechobee. So I went there to get some air conditioning and mom would not leave, but she had the dogs.

SPEAKER_01 12:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 12:19

And I get it. I get you want to be in your home and protect your home and Yeah. With your babies. And you know, as you get older, apparently you don't get as hot as we do. I'm learning that at work. I can't wait. I just don't see it happening for us. I think we'll be hot till the day we got.

SPEAKER_01 12:35

I know, that's why I was and I'm saying changing my way so I don't end up in hell because I can't handle the heat. I know.

SPEAKER_02 12:40

I'm not gonna be able to stand it. My ex-husband, he used to joke around about hell not having me. Then I would complain. It's hot down here. Turn the air on. There's not enough salt on my glass. Yeah. And he said if Satan had an eject button, he would surely use it.

SPEAKER_01 12:56

Well, I've joked about that. If we ever got kidnapped, they'd bring us back. No, I'm sure. Don't want this one.

SPEAKER_02 13:00

Yeah. Good luck, buddy. I know when we were driving, we'd be like, what's that button do?

SPEAKER_01 13:04

What are you doing? Why are you taking me? Where are we going? Is it hot there? Do you have air? Can I have some wine? Got more wine. What can I have?

SPEAKER_02 13:10

I know we need the plan. What time will we get there? What time are we leaving? Do we get to eat? Are you gonna feed us? If you're gonna kill me, just kill me now. Do it right now. Otherwise, I need the plan.

SPEAKER_01 13:19

Yeah, I need the schedule, please.

SPEAKER_02 13:22

I just can't imagine.

SPEAKER_01 13:23

And I would be telling, who are we kidnapping me for? Who are you gonna call master of what? Because I can tell you.

SPEAKER_02 13:27

There's no ransom for me. I don't know what you're doing. I don't even know why this is happening.

SPEAKER_01 13:31

No. Somebody kidnapped you. I give a couple hundred. Hundred? I give a couple hundred to get you back. Okay. Not to give anybody any ideas.

SPEAKER_02 13:41

Hopefully they're not demanding. I know. But we did I mean, this natural disaster thing. I did watch a documentary on Hurricane Katrina and it was devastating.

SPEAKER_01 13:51

The history and stuff and the rebuilding that they had to do of the restaurants there and the music and the things that were lost, I feel bad for them too. It's any place that has to go through devastating natural disasters or disasters, period. There was one where it was so devastating down there that Daddy and Sansan and a bunch of their friends got together and brought a trailer full of supplies down there. Like we couldn't get tarps and we couldn't get um, you know, they brought water in and they just brought all kinds of stuff in and you know, we were able to pass out dog food. You know, things like, you know, you don't think of, you know, feeding your animals and you know, trying to keep them comfortable and trying to keep them cool. I know. You know, they don't understand what's going on either.

SPEAKER_02 14:30

I know. So, you know, it's just crazy, but it is. I was trying to get the girls to tell me their hurricane stories. I didn't really get any, except Camille, she was with Josh. She married her high school sweetheart, the father of my grandchildren. He had written her letters that he couldn't even give to her at the time. But she has them now, and um I told her to keep them because it's a part of history. He describes going out to his car just to turn the air conditioning on periodically to get some relief. Yeah, remember and that he was worried about her. Oh yeah, and didn't know how to get to her because you know they were telling people to stay off the roads and trees were down and yeah, but he said.

SPEAKER_01 15:04

I know.

SPEAKER_02 15:04

But he wrote these letters that gave to her after the fact. That's precious.

SPEAKER_01 15:08

I know. I want to be in love like that. You want to be obsessed over. I want to be obsessed over. But anyway, we just want everybody be safe. Hurricane season. It is hurricane season. A few years ago, we had a big huge family trip all planned to Anna Maria Island, the place that we were already had reserved and everything. It was destroyed. Our vacation got canceled. That whole area, you know, was just devastated. Right. So ultimately, we ended up feeling they will rebuild strong Anna Maria Island kind of thing. But you know, everybody has plans.

SPEAKER_02 15:39

Everybody goes to work, they get up and do their thing, and when that gets derailed, it's hard on a person, I think.

SPEAKER_01 15:44

It's sad.

SPEAKER_02 15:45

It is sad. Yeah. Oh, and I just looked up two hurricane seasons, technically June 1st to November 30th. But we've had hurricanes up to November. The Atlantic hasn't had any storms yet for 2026. There's been three named storms in the Pacific already.

SPEAKER_01 15:58

Wow. Hopefully it's not a big, huge, devastating hurricane season. That's what we can hope. But Mother Nature is she's a beast. She's gonna do what she wants. She's gonna do what she does, and yeah.

SPEAKER_02 16:08

Like any other woman, gonna do what we want. No fury. That's right. That is true. Oh, I just remembered something before we go. Stacy, you know how we like it dark and cold and didn't you plywood all of your windows and lift it up the entire hurricane season, month after month?

SPEAKER_01 16:24

Oh yeah, that was the best time of my life. Yes, we would um that would be one of the things, you know. Some people would like uh duct tape or whatever.

SPEAKER_02 16:31

Some people like sunlight for whatever reason to come in their windows.

SPEAKER_01 16:34

Duct tape their windows to where if the windows shattered, it wouldn't really shatter or whatever. So then I thought, oh, we can put um yes, the plywood up, screw those into on the windows to cover the windows. And uh yes, I felt I was living in a cave for a whole hurricane season. I bet you loved it. It was glorious. It was glorious, and I swear, if it wasn't illegal, that house would still be boarded up. I'd board this house up if I could for safety. Yeah. Sounds good to me. But yes, it was like living in a cave. It was a total blackout. And uh, yes, it was glorious. But that's crazy. That's like one of the crazy things like let's do that.

SPEAKER_02 17:11

Did your neighbors ever how much longer?

SPEAKER_01 17:14

Were they asking you that? I was just like, I feel like we could just paint that board and make it look like a window. There you go. And then, but something about code enforcement and it not being safe if there's a fire or something's about something.

SPEAKER_02 17:28

I wouldn't think where you were living out there. I bet Spring Lake would have said something though. Yeah. That HOA, that guy on that golf cart, drove around all the time. He'd have said those boards have been there's no hurricane out there.

SPEAKER_01 17:37

I know. So eventually I don't remember if I just people made me feel so horrible about it being that way.

SPEAKER_00 17:43

Why?

SPEAKER_01 17:43

Or it being dangerous or what it was that I was like, all right, but uh Do you feel that I left the ones on the back of the house for a long, long time because you couldn't see those for the road. And the neighbors, you know, you couldn't see I couldn't see their house and they couldn't see mine from the back.

SPEAKER_02 17:58

Well, thinking about a fire, do you feel that it was loose enough to where if you kicked it, you'd be able to get out of here.

SPEAKER_01 18:03

No, they were boarded from the outside in. So it it would have been hard. It was dark. It is a one-story house. I know, that's true. You could get out of it. Like I had a hatchet. I could take a something to it and got out of there. But um, yeah, fun times. I do remember cave like living. I think that's hilarious. Cave like living. Yes. I think we should sell it, promote it, make a billion dollars designing cave-like houses. That's brilliant. I'm so smart.

SPEAKER_02 18:28

That might be our next endeavor. I can paint a picture on your plywood and we'll put it up on your window.

SPEAKER_01 18:33

And make it look like it's inside out and outside in.

SPEAKER_02 18:36

Just send me a photograph of your house from yeah, stand outside the window, take a picture so I can make sure it's not the sun's not on it where it's a reflection, but I can actually see through the window and I'll paint what's inside. Brilliant. What the hell? I think this wine's making us smarter. We are so smart. I know we're gonna be rich. On that wine with Brenda and Stacey. Bye.