I traveled home today from Plantation. Although there wasn’t a lot of damage from the hurricane along I-95, there was enough to give one an idea of how devastating the storm was.
Hurricane Jeanne hit Florida in the Port St. Lucie area carrying its destruction over Vero Beach and Ft. Pierce along its way to Orlando. Most of the high business signs along the roadway had no glass (plastic?) in them. In one place, I saw a golden arches that looked like something sat on it. There were a lot of screen enclosures that had only lost screen sections while there were others that had been completely demolished. There were no billboards standing anywhere, and there were tons of trees down, all pointing west.
In one area, there were lines of trees and power poles that were lying on the ground like they had been bowled over. There were several areas where trees were lying aside the road, and it looked like they had been moved from being on the road.
Each place I stopped, there was a lot of damage. I saw all too many business that had lost the plastic parts of their signs leaving only a skeleton outline. Many signs had been knocked over completely.
The businesses that were open were extremely crowded. There were many that were not open at all. In some areas, there was no power. (Thankfully, I got gas the evening I got into Plantation.) I kept getting off at exits here and there looking for either, food, a rest room, or gas. I had come down from Jacksonville on one tank of gas, but I didn’t want to run into backed up traffic and not have enough to get through it.
Even though I would drive a good long ways between stops, the story was the same. There were crowds as the people traveling the highway had not lessened (and actually increased as lots of evacuees were heading back home). Many towns did not have power. All of them had lots of damage.
I only ran into one place where traffic was stopped. A car had run off the road and flipped over. I sat for about 20 minutes while a helicopter loaded the driver and flew them off. I did manage to stop for a rest room break some time after that, and not finding any gas, and too impatient to wait 20 minutes for food, I headed back to the highway and didn’t stop until I was above Daytona. There was no damage there, and gas was plentiful.
It took me an hour longer to go home than it had to go down (six hours instead of five). Most of that was from getting off various exits.
I keep thinking on what I had seen as I drove through the areas hardest hit. I ask that everyone direct some healing energy in that direction as they will need it for some time to come.