We knew it was coming - was following Milton for days it was just a matter of where the monster would decide to enter mainland Florida from the Gulf of Mexico. Sorry for Siesta Key area, that's where Milton made landfall and at least 24 people died and about 3.5 million homes lost power. This was just about one week after Hurricane Helen TOTALLY devastated the Tampa St.Pete area with NEVER seen storm surge.

Because of the way I designed and build my solar array with tracking East - West I designed it so it is easy to remove all panels when storm is approaching, so my wife and I toke all 20 panels down on October 8. On the 10th at 2-3am when Milton passed through it was scary to see my neighbors big Oak tree - just to the North of my house (brace bending scary)  NO damage just lots and lots of broken branches on my roof and of course stuck in connection with my panel stands. We lost power around 2am on the morning of Oct 10th but because of my 14kWh battery power bank we always had power and I even strong an extension cord to one of my neighbors so thy could have power for there refrigerator, couple of lights and a fan. So after all the roof cleanup we reinstalled all solar panels in the sunny afternoon of the 10th. After this experience I/we really saw the importance of solar power backup (we were surrounded by noisy power generators) and when started to get out I saw all the lines of people at the gas stations all caring gas canes. Now I love my solar system even more then ever before and it's not just for storm backup - no it's for every day use and keeping our electric bill to an absolute minimum.