We have a Louisiana plantation-styled house with functional hurricane shutters. The architect was a purist, even though the house is in GA. (Ironically we don't have hurricane shutters at our beach house.) Anyhow, those shutters did help. We wered so scared during the hurricane - it sounded like a freight train going through. You could hear big booms from large pine trees falling. We ended up having 40 trees down, one which came within an inch or so of hitting the house and doing major damage. Thank goodness my husband is a do-it-yourselfer and had a chain saw so he could clear debris, allowing us to drive down our driveway.
We lost power due to a problem with a secondary line which could only be accessed from our neighbor's yard because of all of our downed trees. Our neighbor wouldn't allow the utility workers to access the line because she was afraid they'd damage her sod. She got her power back within 24 hours; thanks to her, we were without power for a week.
We rented a room at a local motel for a week so we could take warm showers (we have an electric hot water heater) and so I could use a hairdryer. Most restaurants had power after about 24 hours, so we ate out or brought in takeout. We didn't spend any time at the motel; we preferred being home.
The only long-lasting effect (besides my anger towards our neighbor) was that from then on, our Weimaraner was deathly afraid of rain, storms, and lightning. Twice she injured herself during a thunderstorm trying to break down a door to get into the house. So we put an invisible fence at all of the entrances to prevent her from harming herself by breaking down a door - a lot of doors - 10 on the main facade (in the Louisiana style, doors instead of windows), plus five more entrances.
Who would have ever thought there would be a hurricane in the part of GA where we live!
