| Author | Message | ||
     Ratbuell |
Mom (in st augustine)...is bored. Talked to her just now, "yeah, there's a drip of water coming between the front door frame and the wall...so I got some duct tape". 79 years old, grew up in Miami. Storm shutters are closed. Car in the garage. Power is fine. A/c is on. Water is on. No outages. Cousins wife (freelance photographer) is running around in her truck taking photos. Forecast is 60mph down to 20 by tomorrow. Nobody gets in the house without bringing a bottle of something good. It's a hurricane party. Neighbors are over and everyone's having a grand ol' time. Just another rainstorm for her  | ||
| Hootowl |
Pretty amazing. Rocks don't float (unless they're very small ones, preferably near a duck).  | ||
| Hughlysses |
^ Great Python reference!  | ||
| Ferris_von_bueller |
Storm has been a bust, so far. Overhyped. | ||
| Torquehd |
Here, maybe. Not in Haiti. | ||
| Hughlysses |
We're still doing OK here (20 miles from Charleston, SC). The eye is almost directly off the coast at Charleston now. It's flooding in downtown Charleston even though it's low tide and some trees are down in surrounding areas. We had rain and wind all night and still continuing. Amazingly our power is still on (knock on wood). Some crews were in our neighborhood trimming trees next to the power lines last week and I think they were more diligent than usual- thank goodness! Hopefully, we've seen the worst of it here. | ||
| Ferris_von_bueller |
People in Haiti live in tin shacks thrown together using leverage and gravity. | ||
| Jaimec |
I heard reports A1A was closed... is it open now? | ||
| Sifo |
Good to hear you are safe Hugh! | ||
| Hughlysses |
The wind is still gusting hard, but the rain has lightened up somewhat. Crap! The power JUST went out! Oh well, it stayed on way longer than I expected. | ||
| Pwnzor |
d'oh! Watch out for zombies! | ||
| 1313 |
Well CRAP! Power just went out about 40 minutes ago. Like Hugh, mine lasted longer than I expected. But the county has been removing trees within a certain distance from power lines the past few years. I guess this means it's bedtime - after I finish this beer of course... 1313 | ||
| Buellish |
I passed convoy after convoy of line trucks on I-20 yesterday heading east coming to your aid. | ||
| Court |
We sent a bunch and I passed at least 150 headed down the New Jersey Turnpike on Wednesday. I got a call, on Thursday, to go for 2 weeks. Can't . . . but there is a ton of work. New York Rescue Crews at work . . . | ||
| Hughlysses |
While this has been nothing to sneeze at, it doesn't appear to be nearly as bad here as Hugo was in 1989. I've been without power for just over 24 hours now. After Hugo, I didn't get power back for nearly 3 weeks. Our power loss this time appears to have been caused by a single tree that fell half way around our block. After Hugo, there were probably 10 trees across the line on our street alone. We have a bunch of small limbs down in the yard, but nothing worse, thank goodness. I'm keeping the refrigerator going and the phones charged with an old Coleman generator my father-in-law gave us for Christmas a year or two after Hugo. I think that'll get replaced with a larger unit sometime this winter. | ||
| 1313 |
Just before 5:30 tonight the power flickered back to life. About 10 minutes after I got an automated call on my phartsmone from Duke Progress Energy, saying theyv were still evaluating and that the hardest hit areas would likely be without power for a few days. Satellite TV reception came back while I finally finished the movie on the DVR. Now if only my internet connection would stabilize... Speedy resolution to Hugh and anyone else affected! 1313 | ||
| Ratbuell |
Mom ran out of wine. So she cleaned up the couple branches that came down in the yard. Her neighborhood fared very well. Parts of st augustine downtown are still underwater, the cathedral for one. No church for Mom right now. Admittedly a bad storm...in places. I'm just glad my 79 year old mom grew up in Miami and knows how to deal with these...and that my late father did a hell of a job picking (and backfilling an extra 24") the lot they built on. Prayers to those who weren't as lucky. | ||
| Blake |
We dodged a real killer I think. Put yourself in the place of the Haitians though. Tough to even imagine. Nature is giving them a serious repeat work over. Jeremy, Was is Haiti where you and friends did some work recently? Any news about the well-being of your acquaintances down there? | ||
| Tq_freak |
Hey everyone I'm in Flagler beach, house is about 3 miles from the coast we all made it thru just fine. lost some flashing on the house and a TON of trees down to clean up. The rest of the area is a giant mess I heard reports A1A was closed... is it open now? A1A thru Flagler is GONE. | ||
| Hughlysses |
My power just came back on after ~49 hours. That's really the only inconvenience I had to deal with. | ||
| Torquehd |
I pcs'ed to the bragg area a couple months ago, wasn't sure what to expect. Lost power early on in the storm, went a day without water. It's back on with a boil advisory. Using my travel trailer, pretty well set up but i'll make a few changes. Need an outdoor cooking area to keep the heat out of the trailer, need a water tank on top for gravity fed so I don't have to rely on the 12 volt pump and internal tank. Also need to get a solar cell to help maintain my batteries. Think I'll look for a honda eu2000 to gang together with my eu1000, should push my AC. Loving my propane powered fridge/freezer. | ||
| Rick_a |
My neighbor had a tree down. Savage.  We had the lights flicker for an hour or two. It was interesting the lights go out for a while in most any storm. The water level was getting pretty high out back, then stabilized. | ||
| Rick_a |
The pier got pretty wrecked at Jax beach and the "dunes" got eroded a bit.   | ||
| Court |
I feel sorry for those folks who "toughed it out" and died. I was listening to the story of the guy who sent his family on their way to safety and stayed behind only to be killed by a falling tree. Tough thing to hear . . . | ||
| Hootowl |
http://www.chron.com/news/hurricanes/article/Exodu s-weighs-heavily-in-death-toll-107-1502590.php Evacuating isn't always the best plan, unless you're right on the beach. Car accidents and medical complications take their toll. It has to remain a personal decision. But...don't bitch when it takes three days to get you off your roof. | ||
| Hughlysses |
Evacuating isn't always the best plan, unless you're right on the beach. Car accidents and medical complications take their toll. It has to remain a personal decision. But...don't bitch when it takes three days to get you off your roof. Yea, an evacuation in South Carolina for Hurricane Floyd back in 1999 turned into a complete CF and wound up costing then-Governor Hodges his job in the next election. In his defense, Floyd was a STRONG category 4 hurricane and was making a bee-line for the coast of SC when the evacuation was ordered. I live ~20 miles inland and decided to leave after I watched a news conference where Hodges promised the roads were clear and they would keep traffic moving. I left town, turned west on I-26, drove 2 miles, and came to a dead stop. ~14 hours later, we arrived at my sister-in-law's house in NC. Meanwhile, Floyd hooked an east turn and missed South Carolina. The good thing that came out of that was over the next couple of years South Carolina worked out a consolidated evacuation plan, including reversal of the east bound lanes on I-26. All that seems to have worked pretty well for the Matthew evacuation. Of course, now we're hearing stories of it taking people ~10 hours to travel 100 miles to return home to the Charleston area. | ||
| Natexlh1000 |
I thought that the government was supposed to open both sides of an interstate during emergencies? I have never seen this actually done. I only ever see one completely full side and one completely empty side. | ||
| Hughlysses |
I thought that the government was supposed to open both sides of an interstate during emergencies? I don't think it's any kind of federal rule or anything. South Carolina did it for the Matthew evacuation last week: | ||
| Pwnzor |
We had it here in Georgia too...  | ||
| Robertl |
Ridden that section of A1A in Flagler many times. They will fix it but I imagine it will take a year or three. Just saw an update on Facebook from Biketoberfest page about a detour for riders and requesting riders keep speed/noise to a minimum as it goes through a residential area. I am halfway between Orlando and Daytona. Spent half of Wed and most of Thursday cutting limbs and trees near my power pole in hopes of keeping power. Helped but not enough. My wife thought I was nuts for storm prepping but glad I did. We had food/water for 3-4 days. Other than a few broken/rotten fence posts, we had no damage. Think I saw 1 very small, dead limb down. Storm started around 5-6 am just as they predicted. I was up at 6.30 am Friday watching outside the best I could in the dark. Lost power at 7.36 am Friday. Well water so no power means no water. Really wished I had showered when I got up. Winds accelerated through the day with the worst being after noon. About 2-3 pm I was a little concerned as I watched trees bend near 90 degrees. I was outside around 4 or 5 pm patching my wood fence to keep the dogs in. Power restored at 6.30 pm. 4-5 inches of rain based on pool level but it was steady rain so it never collected anywhere in the yard. No power does not bother me too much but carrying water to the bathrooms to flush the toilets gets old. Looting was my other concern so I was glad our county kept the curfew in place until Sat 7 am. Have yet to hear of any major damage from coworkers but a few went 3-4 days without power. Some of my neighbors had a lot of limbs down and 1 lost half a tree as it split in half. I will say I felt well informed and got regular updates over the web on my phone (until it died) and local radio. If I had been near the coast or anywhere near water or risk of flooding, I would have left but with 4 large dogs and a cat, staying in a hotel is not an option so meant a 12 hr road trip (without traffic delays). Small generator would be nice to keep the fridge going, fan, and charge phones/tablets. Will definitely get one if I stay in FL. |
