Florida family: Escaping Keys ‘utter chaos’
‘It’s complete devastation’
After that brutal New England winter a couple years ago, Barbara and Charlie McKinnies packed up their three boys and moved from Bridgewater to the Florida Keys, when Charlie got a
“once in a lifetime” job offer.
Yesterday, like many people who call the beautiful tropical islands home, the evacuated couple anxiously awaited word on whether Hurricane Irma had destroyed their house.
“It’s devastating,” Barbara told me yesterday. “We have no idea what happened to our house or our neighborhood or what kind of flooding we got. I just can’t wrap my head around it. It’s tough.”
She hopes no lives were lost. “We just pray for everybody down there,” she said.
The couple have been watching the news, pained by Irma’s wrath. Residents haven’t been allowed back on the Keys.
“You’re seeing places that you drove down just a couple weeks ago and you can see the devastation,” said Barbara, 37. “It’s a lot to process.”
The couple left home Thursday morning. There was a mandatory evacuation and the couple didn’t think twice about leaving. Their sons are 3, 4 and 6 years old and Barbara is 30 weeks pregnant with their fourth boy.
So the couple moved lawn furniture inside, turned off the water and electricity and covered TVs with tarps.
“It was a couple hours of just complete and utter chaos,” she said.
The couple packed up as many belongings as they could into their two cars, such as clothes, important documents, sentimental items and jewelry.
“Anything I could grab,” said Barbara, who was in tears looking at all the little baby clothes lined up in a closest.
Then, the family and their two small dogs drove to Barbara’s parents’ condo in Palm Bay.
“We hunkered down there,” she said. The lights flicked but they never lost power. Six mobile homes were destroyed by a tornado a couple of miles away.
Two years ago, the couple had moved south after Charlie got a job there as a controller for a construction company.
Their house has hurricaneproof windows and they’re trying to be hopeful. “We don’t have a concrete home so we have no idea of the condition of our home,” Barbara said. “We’re just waiting and that’s the scariest part of all this.”
Her boys, she said, are asking if their Legos are OK.
She hopes the community can rebuild.
“It’s complete devastation,” she said. “They’re such a strong group of people. They’ll pull through. I just hope that people find the strength and means to do it.”