Tampa Bay has dropped 5 feet since this morning. Its gonna get backhanded hard
as the back of this thing passes.The high tide will be coming in all along the SW Fl coast from now through about 6 pm unfortunately. Also the St. Johns river is already backing up and beginning to enter flood stage. This thing is gonna be a water killer. They are expecting record river flooding all across central to NE Fl.
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We came here to have a relaxed lifestyle over six years ago. We grow so many fruits and vegetables the high cost of food at the store is mitigated. We just had a star fruit smoothie.
It is a beautiful place and we feel quite safe. We are close to the ocean but on a slope and in a lava zone 3 so there isn't much risk of that. Before we moved here we lived in the shadow of Mt. Rainier so I think we are better off now.
and was near Port Charlotte and the bridge there (blow-out tides).
Sailboats were beached.
It does give him a unique perspective of the comparison of this to that.
At Mexico Beach, there really weren't many places to get to elevation but where they are in Punta Gorda, there's plenty of protection.
that just rained and rained and rained all over southern and SE TX. I think it went out into the GOM at least twice and came back in a couple times since it was completely detached from any steering flow. I was actually watching the live stream with the infamous Jeff Piotrowski "blue shed". It came complete with an AC too. 
About 30 minutes ago, one of these guys (Brad) left what was the same area where those boats were and one of the boats (not the sailboats that were not even visible anymore) broke free and had drifted towards shore where they parked the car, so the surge is slowly happening there. It got tangled in some high power electric lines (the earlier pics of the boats showed that area as a nearly dry bed) -
to check on things. Most had evacuated but a couple who remained were okay and I think another couple were taken out to go somewhere else that was safe - where those who stayed were warned of that back side of the eye.
Punta Gorda is getting destroyed by wind now as one could see from their stream back to the garage. Apparently this is the same garage that Cantori is using (and they were all cracking about it and trying not to photo-bomb his broadcast ).
A lot of trees down and stripped plus lots of sheet metal blown around and street signs down all over the streets.
Listening to another of that group - there was someone on a speaker phone to them who just said there was "20" rain west of N. 40 (which will have some impact on I75), so this thing is producing a lot of the expected rain.
where the breakers are going through and over the fence.
NOAA Sats tweeted out a "sunset over Ian" gif -
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I would say my "first" awareness of the damage from a hurricane was 1972 with Hurricane Agnes that really flooded out so much of PA. I was a Girl Scout back then and had gone to a 2-week overnight camp in 1971 that was located near Gilbertsville, PA. The following year when I went back for another summer, the place was almost unrecognizable - mainly because the big creek that ran through the camp property was impacted by the excessive rain/flooding from Agnes (I had gone a few weeks after Agnes came through). And that pretty much turbo charged my weather hobby at that point.
We have had the remnants of many come through here in Philly over the years. I did actually ride out a Cat 1 - Cosme - in Acapulco in 1989. That particular Hurricane Cosme made landfall just a tiny bit south of Acapulco Bay and the eye actually passed over us overnight and I remember all the rain/wind as it came in (and all manner of ships were taking refuge in Acapulco Bay), and then when the winds died down, the skies cleared, and the stars were out. But after that, all hell broke loose with the convection as the back edge of the eye came overheard.
The storm weakened as it cut across Mexico and was down to a remnant low that ended up reforming in the GOM that was renamed TS Allison, land-falling in TX I think. The remnant of Allison eventually came up here to Philly, so I had the opportunity to experience the same storm twice!
After that, the NHC made a decision to have TCs keep the same name if they cross oceans, including if they have enough of a renmant to regenerate in that other ocean.
Haven't chased but have a couple stations and post on a weather forum. Also have a couple radar programs (GRLevel3 and GR2Analyst) to get my fix, among other things.
That name got retired in 2001. Never was a hurricane either. One of the deadliest Tropical Storms ever. I remembered that thing never got strong but lasted for like 2 weeks. Had to wiki that one to be sure but yeah, one of the deadliest Tropical Storms ever. The 2001 version kinda pulled the same stunt, only worse. It goes to show, 60mph or 160mph, water is the killer. You got the kinder gentler version 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tropical_Storm_Allison
If you look at that track, you can see why (and how what was left of that one came up here as well)!
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The earlier "Allison" associated with Cosme was in 1989.
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Another that I saw the aftermath of was the 1982 Hurricane Iwa that plowed through Hawai'i (and I went there on vacation in 1986 4 years later). By the time I went there, the ferns that adorned the famous "Fern Grotto" on Kauai'i were only just starting to grow back after being completely stripped from the cave entrance. Then 6 years later, Iniki blew through and stripped them again. 
I think since then with the help of conservationists, they have recovered.
Mother Nature.
People in the Path!