9-12-17 former fdl resident survives hurricane irma

Former Fond du Lac resident Joe Boehm admits he probably dodged a bullet.  Boehm and his wife Sheila live in a condominium complex, about 25 miles south of Tampa, 12 miles east of  the Gulf of Mexico and in almost a direct path Sunday night of Hurricane Irma.  “We had plenty of warning and we talked about it for over a week,”  Boehm told WFDL news.  In the end the couple decided to stay at their condo.  Boehm says at first it sounded like the storm was going to hug the Atlantic coast, but things changed quickly this weekend when Irma veered almost directly north of the Keys.  “On Thursday we sat down and we looked at each other like what the heck are we going to do here?”    Boehm says he was confident the house was fortified and they were ready.  He says the winds started to pick up about 5pm Sunday.  “We just kind of sat and looked at each other.  We didn’t say too much.  It was very scary, it got very dark and the wind was blowing,”  Boehm said.  “I think we got like five or six inches of rain, the wind was blowing so hard.  I  kept watching my back door because that’s the low part of the house and the water kept coming closer and closer.”   Boehm says the next morning he saw the screened in back porch was flooded and there were tree limbs and branches in the street, but  miraculously there didn’t appear to be any structural damage to any residences on his block.