Update from St. George Island, post TS Debby

The sun is shining again on St. George, which we love, but would love even more if we had our power back!  This has been a crazy week - we moved into our brand new offices on Thursday and Friday of last week (123 East Gulf Beach - look for the big blue Prudential sign), TS Debby came visiting on Sunday, taking us all a little by surprise with her winds, and Shelley Shepard came on board as our newest team member on Monday - welcome Shelley! 

On Sunday, we had a home inspection scheduled for one of our buyers on a house in Sunset Beach - the inspector (Craig of North Florida Home Inspectors), came in from Panama City, and our clients under contract to buy the house came up from Ocala to be there for the inspection.  Well, they closed the St. George bridge due to high winds an hour after Craig got on the island, and did not re-open it until 4:30PM, so he stayed a little longer than planned, especially since there was no power to complete the inspection.  And our clients were not able to get *on* the island.  So, they talked by phone to Craig, sitting on the Eastpoint side, then had to go back to Ocala for work the next day, hitting some of the worst of the weather!

The worst of the storm moved on through Sunday night, and I got out and started taking photos Monday mid-day, to help our clients assess the condition of their homes.  The bayside took the most water underneath houses, but we only saw one dock damaged by the high water.  The beach was scoured clean and the dunes were partly gone, but not as bad as with the last big hurricane season we had in 2005/6.

Late Monday afternoon, Shelley (who lives in Apalach) and I met at the Garden Shop, with space, power and AC graciously provided by Amanda.  We got Jerry (who was up in Georgia on a famliy trip) and Mary Agnes (from her home in Port St. Joe) on the phone and started up our team plan to get information out to all our clients.  Curfew for residents was 8PM, so I got back on the island before dark, no problem.  Shelley was able to get onto the island Tuesday morning to go to work, and she and I spent the day yesterday documenting as many homes as we could, and we divvied up the photos between Jerry, Mary Agnes, Shelley and me (via DropBox!) and got the emails going out. 

 Thanks GOODNESS for iPads and iPhones.  You'll see my set-up last night on my kitchen table, by candle light, with the iPad providing internet, and on battery power with the laptop, to get my emails out to you.  Quite the testimonial for Apple!

A quick re-charge at El Jalisco in Eastpoint this morning over breakfast, and we are ready to go another day!

Shelley and I are at the office now, getting our just-moved-into office set up a little better, and working on battery and iPad hotspot. 

Text or email us - we are here, just trying to conserve battery power by not talking on the phone too much, as re-charging in our cars is a little cumbersome... Jerry and Mary Agnes have power, so no problem calling them - it's just from the island with no power to charge batteries that has Shelley and I on a limited cell phone diet...

Absolutely gorgeous day on St. George - bright blue skies, Progress Energy finally able to get out to the big poles and get the connections needed to bring our power back, and we are looking forward to that, for sure!

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