The blonde's younger sister lives on the waterway in Miami. About a half mile in from Biscayne Bay. Due to her husband's medical condition they decided they needed to stay put and ride Irma out. The house is almost 70 years old and is built like a bomb shelter, all poured concrete and reinforced cinder block, the slab was designed and poured about a degree off level so that if they ever got water...when it receded, most of it would roll right out. We are told the roof is strapped down to hold up under 175 MPH winds, and they have corrugated retractible steel shutters on all the windows. It has gone through all the big storms in Miami since the early 1950's without any serious damage. But we were concerned about the storm surge coming down the waterway...nothing this big had ever been headed directly for them. But when Irma went west (as predicted by the European model), we were pretty sure they would be fine, and in fact the water never even came up into their back yard. We suspect a direct hit as originally forecast would have put them in probably at least 2 feet of water. But they had decided they needed to stay there so we didn't talk about that at the time.

But right in the middle of it all, during the worst of it there in Miami, the 20 year old backup generator blew up. And even though they were in an area that had power restored in less than 48 hours after Irma had moved out, it was pretty rough for them, mostly for her husband, who's not doing very well. And when he's not doing well...nobody's doing very well. The neighbors ran a line over for the refigerator and she was able to recharge her iPhone to keep in touch...so at least we knew they were doing OK.

Scary for us...obviously even more so for them.