REBUILD Northwest Florida is finished with us

The final, final inspection is done. The inspector, Dale, took the construction permit and all the paperwork with him. He also removed the REBUILD lawn sign. He said to expect big savings on the insurance. Final paperwork will be mailed soon.

Almost the Final Inspection

An inspector from Escambia County came by this afternoon to sign off on the work done by the contractors who did the retro-fitting of our house. He says there will be one more inspection, but we can put things back in the attic now. Just one more step and the project will be done?

It's the end of the REBUILD Project

The final step in the house's wind mitigation rebuild was today's installation of new impact-resistant garage doors.


Installing the new impact-resistant garage doors.

We got a call last week to expect the installers on Monday between 8:00 and 10:00 A.M. They arrived at 9:45.

As with all the REBUILD Northwest Florida work, replacing the doors was a noisy process. And this procedure took longer than the earlier ones. The two installers were here over six hours. It seemed that one of them was a trainee and he was doing a solo installation of one of the doors.


The new, reinforced door panels -- ready to install. They are much stronger than the old doors.

Almost all of the retrofitting is invisible. You can see the new garage doors but the old doors were in great condition, so the new doors look about the same. The rest of the work was inside walls, under soffits or in the attic. Invisible.

Final inspection comes next.

Hurricane Shutters

The hurricane shutters are installed and stored away in the garage. We are ready for the next big storm.

At 9:30 A.M., right on time, an installer arrived. A few minutes later another one appeared. After lots of very loud drilling of holes and the placement of anchor screws they were finished right at noon. Done.

We have a total of ten windows, including a set of French doors leading to the backyard.

The shutters consist of overlapping galvanized steel panels, about a foot wide and as tall as the window plus a few inches to fit over anchor pins. The panels are attached at each end with washers and wing nuts.

When not covering the windows the panels fit together in one neat cluster in the garage. The footprint for shutter panels for all ten windows is amazingly small, about a square foot.

Now there's one final step, we get new, reinforced garage doors.

REBUILD Northwest Florida, continued

The last work done by the REBUILD folks was on December 1. Since then no one had called regarding the last two steps in the retrofitting of the house. At 5:30 P.M. today we got a call from the people who install the window covers: they can come tomorrow morning and start work between 9:00 and 10:00. It should take about three hours.

They must have had a cancellation.

Reinforcing the Roof, Day 3

A pickup truck, with a crew of two men, arrived with a big trailer
full of hoses, heaters, pumps and goo.

Today there's another crew here to inject a foam adhesive sealant into all the roof-to-wall connections. This is done with pressure hoses. They got here a little after 1:00 P.M. and spent an hour assembling hoses, heaters and goo. The goo apparently has to be heated then sent up a hose to the guys in the attic.

There should be no discomfort to the residents of the house. The fumes are totally safe to breathe. But "it would be a good idea to air out the house for a couple of hours" after they are finished. They were finished around 4:30.

The installers were wearing hazmat suits and they were breathing through respirators.

Two more steps and we will be finished with REBUILD Northwest Florida:
(1) new, reinforced garage doors;
(2) shutters on all the windows and over the French doors to the backyard.

The Retrofit Continues, Day 2

Monday's crew reappeared 7:05 this morning ready to put the soffits back up and finish the other two projects they started. There was talk on Monday that they might be back yesterday afternoon to finish up but they didn't have time.

We needed Monday's work completed today because the roof deck attachment people want to start tomorrow afternoon. They cannot begin until the current roof work is finished.


The photo above shows walls, roof beams and a hurricane strap. After they removed the soffits, the ends of the roof beams and the top of the wall were exposed. The strap was securely attached to both with screws. This isn't exactly how our roof beams look. I got this photo from Google. But the concept is the same. And the strap is the same.

(1) We have a new front door. This one is wind and impact resistant and it works beautifully. And locks easily. I mention this as we had planned to get our handyman to replace the old, rusted and cranky front door that was getting very hard to open.

(2) All the roof-to-wall connections along the non-gable ends of the house have been reinforced with metal clips and big thick screws. All the soffits are back in place and the wood trim to cover the joins has been painted with white primer. Very neatly.

(3) Up in the attic they added lots of wood 2 by 4's for bracing and more metal clips. This was done inside the house, to reinforce the gable ends.

Today's crew was done by 11:30. At 1:00 P.M. tomorrow another crew should arrive. They will use adhesive spray to glue the roof to the walls between the newly reinforced beams.

It's Mitigation Day!

Or more likely Mitigation Week...or Month.

Workers from REBUILD Northwest Florida are here to retrofit the house, especially the roof and windows, to withstand a Category 3 hurricane.


Their website says, "REBUILD Northwest Florida coordinates construction management services for its Residential Wind Mitigation Retrofit Program in Escambia and Santa Rosa Counties."

The workers arrived early, about 7:30 A.M. and we expect this phase of the rebuild, or Mitigation, as we have learned to call it will take a day or two. The front door and its framing are getting replaced by one worker. Two more are removing the soffit around the edge of the roof -- from the outside. Later they go into the attic to install metal clips and wood braces to reinforce the attachment of the roof to the walls.

It's very noisy.

Last spring Jack applied for this and it took many months for estimators to inspect the house and get the application approved.

The homeowner pays 25% of the total cost. The balance, up to $15,000 is paid for by several organizations including FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency; Florida State Emergency Response Team and Escambia County Local Mitigation Strategy. I love the latter's slogan: "A Partnership for a Sustainable & Disaster Resilient Community."

In the next few weeks work will include installing stronger garage doors, foam sealant around all the new construction and removable hurricane shutters for the windows and doors. We expect the whole thing will be done by Christmas.

Signs of Spring -- At Last

A few days ago I saw some color in the hedge. Today there were lots of blooms on this one bush. Soon the whole front yard will be full of blooming azaleas. Many different kinds.

New Restaurant -- Five Sisters Blues Cafe

Last Friday we had lunch at Pensacola's newest restaurant, Five Sisters Blues Cafe.

Cecil Johnson sold CJ's Kitchen & Grille and opened Five Sisters Blues Cafe two weeks ago. It's on Belmont just off DeVilliers. The cafe specializes in Southern fare.

We arrived around 12:30 for lunch and the place was packed. It's noisy with the polished floor and glossy ceiling. Very loud. In the evening there is live music. The food was fine and the sides were wonderful with lots of choices. Service was friendly but the kitchen was slow. Probably this will improve over time. They haven't been open very long. My smoked turkey was excellent as was the chicken fried steak.

The food was on the salty side for my taste. Next time I will ask them not to add any. It wasn't as salty as food I have been served at Pensacola's Fish House or Cactus Flower Cafe, but in this health conscious time there's no reason to serve any over-salted food.

There's an extensive menu of some of my favorite things to eat so we will be back to the Five Sisters. And we will still go to CJ's for breakfast, too.

Spring is here

I took this photo today. The azaleas are starting to bloom in the front yard. These plants have bunches of very small blossoms -- each flower is about an inch across.


Click on image to enlarge

A Snow Day In Pensacola, Florida?

8:00 AM weather map (the crosshair shows where we live)


1:00 PM Central Standard Time

The local schools and government offices are all closed -- in case of snow.

I'll post more weather maps during the day if there's anything interesting. Word is the snow will begin early in the afternoon. And we should get about three inches of it.

At 1:00 in the afternoon the sleet is getting closer, but no snow yet. At 2:00 PM we had a five-minute snow flurry in the backyard and that was all we got. Near us there were snowfalls of one to three inches. My favorite report on road conditions around here was that "all the highways in [some rural] county were closed until further notice." From three inches of snow?

Backyard: The Pool At Sunset

Taken in Pensacola, Florida on November 13, 2009 at 6:10 PM CST.

Why People Get Lost In Our Neighborhood

At the corner of Northpointe Boulevard and Northpointe Parkway


Northpointe Boulevard and Northpointe Way


Northpointe Boulevard and Northpointe Place


Northpointe Boulevard and Northpointe Drive


Northpointe Boulevard and Northpointe Court


Northpointe Boulevard and Northpointe Circle


The crossing of Northpointe Boulevard and Northpointe Boulevard. How can this be?


This one is for Jason K. And David T.

The Pool Is Open

The pool is looking good, the water is clear and the palms and palmettos are green and healthy.

We had a very chilly spring and the pool took forever to get warm enough for a comfortable swim. Usually we are in the pool every day after the first week of May. This year it was early June before we could really enjoy the water temperature.

Now the weather is so hot here in Northwest Florida that it is trying to break 60 year old records. And the pool is almost hot.

Ducky helps steer leaves to the skimmer and in emergencies keeps the chlorine level up.

Pensacola History Featured In This Month's Smithsonian Magazine

Here's a link to Smithsonian Magazine's online edition and an article about Pensacola and its maritime history. Don't miss the photo gallery and the video.

Farmers' Markets, Summer 2009

Photo from Pensacola News Journal -- www.pnj.com

Last February Pensacola's huge produce and plant store, Bailey's, closed "temporarily." The hand written sign on the door said they would be back in April. Well it's May and there's a for sale sign in the parking lot. Bailey's will be missed.

Last Wednesday the News Journal had an article about local growers and they included the following list:

-- Andrew's Sod and Fruit: 3900 Tungoil Road, Walnut Hill, 982-9263. Specializing in Centipede sod, they now also grow strawberries and other vegetables.

-- Lundy Blueberry Patch: 8655 State Road 89 North, Milton, 623-0652. U-pick, fresh blueberries in the early summer and pecans in the fall.

-- Steve's Homegrown Sweet Corn: 1201 State Road 99 South, Walnut Hill, 327-4020. Family-owned, fresh vegetable market specializing in sweet corn, peas, butter beans, okra and other locally grown vegetables. Fee fishing in stocked catfish ponds is also available.

-- Touchablue Berry Farm: 7100 Molino Road, Molino, 587-5072. U-pick blueberries.

-- Holland Farms: 2055 Homer Holland Road, Milton, 675-6876. The family-operated farm offers a wide variety of produce throughout the year, including watermelon and a fall peanut harvest.

-- Grimes Blueberries: 6814 Sunshine Hill Road, Molino, 587-5281. U-pick blueberries.

-- Carraway Blueberries: 790 Molino Road, Molino, 587-5439. U-pick blueberries.

-- Beulah Berries: 6658 Suwanee Road, Pensacola, 453-2384. U-pick blueberries.

-- Green Acres Farm: 10810 State Road 97, Walnut Hill, 698-6663. This small family farm raises pasture-based chickens for eggs and meat -- plus turkey, lamb and dairy goats. All animals live out on pasture and are rotationally grazed.

-- Lowry Farm: 2118 Lee Morris Road, Jay, 675-0383.
The family-operated farm offers green peanuts, peas, sweet corn and watermelons. They open the second week in June.

-- Green Cedars Farm: 9280 Gibson Road, Molino, 698-0107. Green Cedars produces naturally grown, nutritionally superior pastured poultry, eggs and lamb and some select fruits and vegetables. Farm tours for customers, school and church groups are available.

-- Salter's Farm Market: 8847 Chumuckla Highway, Chumuckla, 994-4734. Salter's Farm Market is a local tradition in Chumuckla. Known for growing and selling greens, tomatoes squash, cucumbers and melons, the Salter Family has been in business since the 1980s. The Salter slogan is, "If we grow it, you'll like it!"

-- Riverwalk Market: 5191 S. Willing St., Milton, 626-6246. Riverwalk Market brings local residents, artists, chefs and farmers together to offer a unique variety of quality wares. The market is across from Veterans Memorial Park and the Riverwalk boardwalk along the beautiful Blackwater River.

-- Palafox Market: Martin Luther King Jr. Plaza on Palafox Street in downtown Pensacola. Visit www.palafoxmarket.com. The Downtwon Improvement Board runs this farmers market from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturdays through Sept. 26. The market includes locally grown seasonal fruit and fresh vegetables, homemade goodies, original artwork and free WiFi. Arrive early for the best produce selection.

"Into the Woods" at University of West Florida

Last Sunday afternoon we saw an excellent production of Steven Sondheim's "Into the Woods" at the University of West Florida.

The cast was mostly students, and very good musical theater students at that. We were pleased to see that one of our favorite local actors, Brooke Hardy, was Little Red Riding Hood. She was excellent as was much of the cast -- especially the actors who played the Baker, the Baker's Wife, the Witch and Cinderella.

For the list of cast and crew plus photos of the production click here.

Teriyaki Chicken

Last week we had lunch at Nobusei Japanese Restaurant. It's a favorite for a delicious and reasonably priced (cheap in other words) lunch. In the evenings they also do wonderful grilled meats, shrimp and fish at the lively Hibachi tables. Their live chefs chop, grill and entertain. Nobusei is actually the closest restaurant to our house.

One of their best offerings at lunch is teriyaki chicken with tempura vegetables -- batter fried bell pepper, sweet potato, onion rings, broccoli and carrot matchsticks. All of this preceded by soup and salad.

Nobusei's teriyaki chicken was so good I wanted to make it at home. So I did some Google research. There were lots of recipes, the one used was for Teriyaki Chicken Kababs, a.k.a. Yakitori.

I didn't want to grill the chicken on skewers so I sliced each skinless, boneless breast into four slices, the long way, and pounded to flatten a bit. Then marinated the chicken for 30 minute and grilled them for about two minutes on each side. They browned up nicely and tasted "right." Very good indeed.

Next time I will have to try making those tempura vegetables, too.

Three Named-Storms Now in the North Atlantic

Late afternoon on Friday it looks like Tropical Storm Hanna has missed us here in the Florida panhandle. It may cause a wet weekend along the Atlantic coast.

[This map is from WeatherUnderground.com. For a larger map click the image above. For more tropical storm information go to the Weather Underground site.]

Hurricane Ike may be headed right into the Gulf of Mexico. On its way to Pensacola? That's a possibility. We will find out by the middle of next week.

And it's too early to guess where Tropical Storm Josephine may end up.