Thank you for all the prayers and support over the past two weeks.  Your prayers and encouragement have lifted many, including myself.  The physical and emotional strain has been challenging; but we are okay and getting a little better each tomorrow.

Power was just restored to casa del Sundance, and thankfully the electrical restoration did not encounter damaged internal wiring as reconnection was accomplished.  Many others are not as fortunate.  When the power comes back on it is always a mixed blessing. Thankfulness is accompanied by a sense of guilt in knowing there are so many still without basic utility services.

According to the LCEC utility company 42,906 homes are still without power.  There is zero restoration on the barrier islands (7,400 homes on Pine Island and 10,946 on Sanibel).  Major infrastructure repair work is underway on the islands as the effort to remove debris continues.  Fort Myers Beach, Sanibel and Pine Island will be rebuilding for a long time.

Water restoration services are still underway throughout the county and boil water notices still present for many areas.  There is joy in the simplicity of taking a hot shower in your own home and having the ability to wash clothes changes the outlook on a task many consider a chore.  My prayers continue for those who have a long way before that simple joy returns.

There are no words adequate enough to express appreciation for those volunteers who organized field hygiene stations, portable showers, cooling tents, and even laundry services in community parks and neighborhood parking lots.  Trust me, this is an underappreciated and valuable resource needed during emergency operations. Related to this, please remind yourself to include topical antiseptics and skin creams in your own hurricane or emergency kits.

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In an effort to keep the Daily Open Thread a little more open topic we are going to start a new daily thread for “Presidential Politics”. Please use this thread to post anything relating to the JoeBama Administration and Presidency.

“This is no small thing, to restore a republic after it has fallen into corruption. I have studied history for years and I cannot recall it ever happening. It may be that our task is impossible. Yet, if we do not try then how will we know it can’t be done? And if we do not try, it most certainly won’t be done. The Founders’ Republic, and the larger war for western civilization, will be lost.”

“But I tell you this: We will not go gently into that bloody collectivist good night. Indeed, we will make with our defiance such a sound as ALL history from that day forward will be forced to note, even if they despise us in the writing of it.”

~ Mike Vanderboegh

This thread will refresh daily and appear above the Open Discussion Thread.

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Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy Name. Thy kingdom come. THY WILL BE DONE, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but DELIVER US FROM EVIL.

For Thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory, forever and ever. Amen †

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Livestream begins at 12:00 pm ET.

President Trump is scheduled to speak at 7:00 pm ET.

Beyond stumping for Lake and Masters, Trump’s Save America PAC has started spending money in Arizona on behalf of both candidates. The ads, which started running this weekend, paint the upcoming election as a referendum on President Biden’s policies.

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It seems that “voting with your feet” (this time electronically) still works. PayPal, which had announced new “legal agreements” earlier this month, is backing down.

That sounds like gaslighting to someone who works with corporate attorneys.

Every single word and punctuation mark is approved by legal and corporate before release. “Never intended to be inserted” isn’t a thing.

— Robert Rand (@robertwrand) October 8, 2022

The new agreement, which would have taken effect in early November, attempted to control free speech by its clients. It has since been removed from the PayPal website, but as reported by The Daily Wire:

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In an effort to keep the Daily Open Thread a little more open topic we are going to start a new daily thread for “Presidential Politics”. Please use this thread to post anything relating to the JoeBama Administration and Presidency.

“This is no small thing, to restore a republic after it has fallen into corruption. I have studied history for years and I cannot recall it ever happening. It may be that our task is impossible. Yet, if we do not try then how will we know it can’t be done? And if we do not try, it most certainly won’t be done. The Founders’ Republic, and the larger war for western civilization, will be lost.”

“But I tell you this: We will not go gently into that bloody collectivist good night. Indeed, we will make with our defiance such a sound as ALL history from that day forward will be forced to note, even if they despise us in the writing of it.”

~ Mike Vanderboegh

This thread will refresh daily and appear above the Open Discussion Thread.

(more…)

Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy Name. Thy kingdom come. THY WILL BE DONE, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but DELIVER US FROM EVIL.

For Thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory, forever and ever. Amen †

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Florida Governor Ron DeSantis was in the devastated town of Fort Myers Beach today to deliver an update on the aftermath from Hurrican Ian.  Incredibly we are ten days post storm while search teams are still conducting operations to locate and recover bodies.  The collapsed and unstable buildings are very challenging and rescue workers are almost always kept out of unstable buildings.  {Direct Rumble Link}

Fort Myers beach is about 7 miles long (+/-) and about a half to three-quarters of a mile wide (average), a large percentage of the compacted homes have still not been searched.  It’s not the distance of the damage taking time to search, it’s the actual scale of the damage in this zone.  So many structures collapsed and flooded with storm surge.  WATCH (remarks begin at 7:15 of video):

.

[Florida Gov]  TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Today, Governor Ron DeSantis traveled to Fort Myers Beach to give updates on recovery efforts in areas that have been impacted by Hurricane Ian. Floridians continue to show resiliency through communities coming together to help each other. Full remarks can be found here.

Governor DeSantis was joined by local officials to announce that access has been cleared for residents to return to Fort Myers Beach. Portable showers and restrooms were brought in for residents to use while the clean their homes. Governor DeSantis was also joined by Eric Silagy, CEO of Florida Power and Light (FPL) to give an update on the progress they have made in restoring power to their customers. FPL has already restored power to 99% of the households they cover in Lee County and Southwest Florida that can receive power.

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There is a particular texture and smell familiar to those who have trekked through saltwater marshes.  In ordinary times the moment when the greyish matter takes custody of your shoe, you quickly ponder whether to stick your hand into it or just buy another pair of sandals and move on… often it’s the latter.

The sand, sediment, dirt and decomposing nature -to include fish bits and wildlife food sources- creates a blended muck and grows slowly over years.  The moist muck does not like to be disturbed.  It has a very particular smell when it is disturbed, until it dries, almost like a natural defense mechanism.  Hurricane Ian disturbed the backwater shoreline inland and introduced that sludge mix to places it was never before, like inside buildings.  Thankfully it is drying out now.

The officials in charge of Fort Myers Beach have determined that almost every structure on the island is unsafe after the storm pushed a massive surge of water onto the island while the wind destroyed the buildings.  Residents are being carefully managed and kept away from areas where search crews are still looking through rubble.

A plan for a limited number of residents to be bussed into one part of the area to look for belongings has been released [link].  Beach officials are calling it, “debris management and the effort to locate our friends and loved ones.”  It is now a full ten days later, and no one wants to use the real words, ‘dead people.’   I think about Ms Veronica being so clear and true in her point a few days ago, “there are dead people and there are survivors.”

Further north and to the west on Pine Island there are lots of survivors.  With the temporary road giving access, there are lots of people picking up bits, fragments, and other important stuff that holds their memories; each bit revisited in the handling of it, many bits thought about tenderly for the first time in decades.   Fragmented bits hold memories, and those memories are exactly what make up the invisible links of our lives.

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Livestream begins at 2:00 3:00 pm ET.

President Trump is scheduled to speak at 10:00 pm ET.

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