A Florida woman whose family lives in Sturgeon County, Alta. said she and her husband are trying to get their lives back to normal after Hurricane Matthew blew through their county.
Bonnie French has lived in Palm Bay, Fla. for 14 years and has lived through a couple of hurricanes. Her house is made of concrete, has a metal roof and doubled-paned windows.
She and her husband had wavered on whether to evacuate and decided ultimately that they would stay behind with their house. They had been tracking the hurricane and started preparing Wednesday night for the incoming storm.
“We went and we got food. We went and bought a tarp in case anything happened to the roof so we could cover things. We went and got 50 pounds of ice in case we needed it.”
The couple live 10 miles inland, and French said she could tell when the hurricane hit.
“[The wind] is a pretty eerie feeling. It sounds like a wild animal outside your house. It doesn’t let up. It’s a steady speed. It’s a constant pressing,” she said.
French said there was no telling what could potentially happen with the hurricane so she did not take any chances.
“We wrote our wills. We put them in plastic bags and put them in the refrigerator. I messaged both my sons to tell them that,” she said.
Around 3 a.m. on Friday, French’s house lost power; they have been surviving on a generator ever since. Fortunately, there is little damage to their property.
“The trees all get stripped of their leaves. We got a big oak tree. We got leaves all over the place,” she said.
“In reality, we came out of it really, really good compared to what it could have been.”
She and her husband have been assessing the damage to their neighbourhood and said it has come out of the hurricane mostly unscathed.
“There are people that had trees fall onto their homes or their vehicles. From what we could see doing a cursory quick walk around our neighbourhood, everybody made it out okay,” she said.
“We really missed a bullet on this one. It could have been horrendous.”
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