A little info on where I am. I am located in Lauderhill, about a mile west of the turnpike, in between oakland park blvd and commercial blvd. I'm in a hi-rise building, 8 floors, on the first floor. I am on the north side of the building, all my windows face NNNW. I have a balcony, and I spent the first part of the storm there, fairly well protected at the time (until the roof blew off), from the SE and S winds. I was sitting on the balcony, in awe of Wilma, when it suddenly got alot darker outside. I then see this large object floating/flying threw the air above me. It came crashing down on the cars parked right in front of my balcony. It was a very large section of our building's roof. Other large pieces actually flew across 44th st just north of my balcony, taking out the neighbors fences, and JUST missing the power lines there. At this point my balcony viewing of Wilma was concluded. There were too many pieces of swirling debris falling around to be out there. Many good size chunnks of our roof were stuck in the trees just to the north of our balcony. Some pics of the first half of the storm from my balcony:
As the SE corner of the eye passed over we got a slight break, about 15 minutes. I could see the sky really lighten up to our NW. Then all hell broke loose. In an instant we went from 20mph winds to 80-90mph out of the west. It was steady. And it lept building up slowly. I believe we had sustained winds of around 100-105 in this area, with gusts to AT LEAST 120. I have lived here since 1984 and have been through quite a few tropical systems, so I don't think my estimates are totally unqualified. There were times, for MINUTES at a time, where the wind was strong enough to create a fog of mist, debris, glass, leafs, to where you couldn't see the railing on my balcony from the sliding door. And there were gusts, the first of which sent me sprinting into my windowless kitchen. I have never in my life feared for my life during a storm like I did in Wilma. I was certain my unboarded sliding glass door was going to shatter, especially after I saw a flurry of venetian blinds going flying by my balcony......I knew someone was in big trouble......with broken windows in a storm like this. Thankfully everyone in my area survived unharmed. I believe the roof debris from the first half of the storm, that was lodged in the trees, was what knocked out the windows in the second half:
All I know is, that after living 22 years in hurricane country, I have a new respect for hurricanes. I never would have thought a cane coming from the west coast of florida could do the type of damage Wilma did on the east coast. What a major pain in the arse. I can't imagine what a cat 4 or 5 would do to this area. Here are some more pics of damage around my area. I would have had some much better pics, but I had no more memory in my digital cam, and no power to download the pics. I hope everyone made it through ok. I think we prepared realtively well. I wasn't boarded up (big mistake), but was otherwise prepared.
