OUR LIFE IN 3D

Matthew is no Saint

You know it is going to be a long day when Jim Cantore and the Weather Channel pull into your town.

Welcome to Hurricane Central!

Well, no, not really.

I wanted to send a post out to family and friends about what we are doing with the approaching storm headed our way. Maybe anyone reading this post, and the few I have planned later this week as the storm approaches, can get a little feel for what is like on the coast with a hurricane headed your way.

Well Monday we received word we are in the path for a category 4 hurricane. Cat 4’s are nothing to take for granted. The good thing about hurricanes is that they do give you plenty of time to plan.

So Monday we got the word Matthew was headed our way.

Tuesday our great governor tells us to evacuate THE STATE!

Not the coast but the state.  How many people does that uproot and put on the roads? The hurricane is not due to hit our area until early Saturday morning. She is telling us to get out on Tuesday.

So Wednesday, the next morning at 8am (4 days from hurricane landfall) the bread aisles looked like this at our local grocery store after hurr announcement:

And the aisle selling water looked like this in the morning:

Fortunately for our area, my job (a.k.a. the snack man) is to make sure all the grocery stores and convenience stores are stocked with snacks and my warehouse looks like this:

The snack aisle will be full for anyone preparing for doom and gloom when the power goes out.

It’s too bad I don’t sell gasoline…

So why the ‘mandatory’ evacuation notice so early?

Sixteen years ago, Hurricane Floyd was to plotting to hit our town and that governor waited until  24 hours out before he said, “Get out”.

And that made GRIDLOCK on the highways; everyone leaving at one time. A 90 minute car ride took 6 hours. Everyone’s temper grew.

A local artist, Steven Jordan, tried to capture the errant evacuation with a tongue-in-cheek painting like this:

So here is one time that we DID learn from our mistakes!

Hope for Humanity!

This hurricane we have 3 days to evacuate. So nice job Nikki!

Still I hear the highways were still very slow…

on Wednesday

for those that chose to go..

Other parts of our ‘State’s’ evacuation, speaking a learning from our mistakes, are:

1) they opened up the in bound lanes on our highway to out bound on Wednesday. So instead of 3 lanes leading out-of-town there were now 6 lanes.

2) They brought in over 300 school buses for the homeless and people with out cars so they too could evacuate,

Take a look:

So what did I and my precious little girls decide to do?

We are ‘weathering’ out the storm!

First, I have to work. There are grocery store shelves to be filled!

Second, the girls have off of school! 

Several of our neighbors are staying put too.  So last night I weather proofed the outside and pool deck. We did stock up on batteries and water.

Ahh, we already had plenty of snacks on hand. Snack man!

Still, living this close to the coast you still tend to worry.

We have all seen the disaster stories. Jim Cantore and the Weather Channel won’t let us forget on the catastrophic possibilities This area still talks about Hurricane Hugo some 25+ years ago.

We actually live about 20 miles from the edge of the continent but the area’s water reservoir is about 800 yards from our back yard.

I found a Storm Surge web site then that can help us predict how much danger (drama) we are in when it starts to rain.

Here is a pic of the water level behind us with a 5 foot storm surge. We live on the paper clip looking thingy (road) that butts up to the woods that borders the water…

and so here is how far the water rises at a 10 foot storm surge…

Not much difference is there?

So that will help me sleep at night when the storm bands sweep over head and drop the Atlantic Ocean on us.

Ironically, this storm is hitting exactly one year since that freakish storm hit last October the 1000 year storm (seriously, that is what it is called), which dropped over two 1/2 feet of rain on us over two days.

Remember that? It went right over top of us…

So this ‘little’ Hurricane Matthew is only supposed to drop a measly 10-15 inches of the wet stuff on us.

Pish-posh!

Thanks for the invite Gov. Nikki but I think we are going to stay.

Oh by the way, Matthew appears to be meeting his girlfriend, Nicole, out in the Atlantic. 

God only know what these two have planned when they mix it up!

Stay tuned…

What are your thoughts?

What would you do?