Hurricane Irma is on the way, and everyone’s now calling it the “IrmApocolypse.”

I grew up in Florida, and when I was too little to care about anything except a day off from school, hurricanes were always fun and exciting. Now that I have a house, 2 cats, 2 dogs, 1 kid and 23 fish to keep safe, it’s a little more stressful.

Hurricane Irma is on Her Way

As I type this, my husband is outside drilling holes into our freshly painted house to put plywood over the windows we just had installed last month. We finally fulfilled our dream of buying a house at the beach and have been working hard to renovate it since December.

We bought what you might call “the neighborhood eyesore” so it has required extensive work. Now I’m hoping and praying that this storm passes through without damaging the house.

Since we live on a barrier island, we are evacuating tomorrow to a safer place inland. This is my first time in 40 years of living in Florida that I have ever evacuated! It’s pretty crazy, but this hurricane looks like it is no joke.

Of course, I made a joke about it:

So, take care everyone, watch out for this crazy storm! I’ll let you guys know if our house is still standing, lol. #irmagerd

Looking Back at Hurricane Irma: A Storm That Left Its Mark

In the end, we did not actually evacuate. We stayed home and rode out the most intense storm I’ve ever experienced.

A big boom woke me up around 2AM, when the howling winds brough a tree down on our house. It was pretty crazy outside, and another tree came down but missed the house and went into the pool.

The next day, the neighborhood was so torn up you could barely see the road.

Hurricane Irma tore through the Atlantic with a force few storms have ever matched. As one of the strongest hurricanes ever recorded in the open Atlantic, Irma wasn’t just a weather event—it was a moment that reshaped communities, tested emergency response systems, and reminded us all of nature’s raw power.

A Category 5 Storm

Hurricane Irma formed off the west coast of Africa and rapidly intensified into a Category 5 storm, with sustained winds reaching 185 mph. It held that intensity for a record-breaking 37 hours. The storm’s path carved a trail of destruction across the Caribbean before turning its sights on Florida, making landfall in the Keys on September 10, 2017, and sweeping up the state with devastating winds and storm surge.

By the time it made it to us, it was a Category 1. I can’t imagine the devastation of a higher category storm!

Entire neighborhoods flooded and millions were left without power. Trees, homes, and lives were uprooted in minutes. Yet amid the chaos, communities rallied. Neighbors helped neighbors, first responders worked around the clock, and the resilience of those affected became just as powerful a story as the storm itself.

I was impressed how quickly our neighborhood was cleaned up. House roofs patched with blue tarp everywhere. My husband was out with a chainsaw, clearing trees from the roads.

Florida saw damage across nearly every county. From Jacksonville’s record-breaking flooding to the flattened homes in the Keys, recovery was long and, in many places, ongoing even years later. For many residents, Irma wasn’t their first hurricane—but it was one they’ll never forget.

Irma also reignited important conversations about disaster preparedness, infrastructure, and the effects of climate change on storm intensity. It pushed policymakers and citizens alike to reconsider how we prepare for future storms and how we rebuild after them.

Today, Hurricane Irma serves as both a warning and a reminder. A warning of how rapidly conditions can change, and a reminder of how strong communities can be in the face of unimaginable force.