Thought were going to get by this tropical season with minimal impact… Wishful thinking aside, Helene is rearing up and making her entrance soon.
-sing
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https://www.nhc.noaa.gov/refresh/graphics_at4+shtml/153941.shtml?cone#contents
I track with the cone of uncertainty…my assessment. Worked pretty good for 35 years.
I am the blue dot in this 5:00p update. I am not too worried about my house, I have hurricane shutters if I need them. I am concerned about the impact on the Intracoastal. Tropical storm Debby overloaded the water treatment plants here and dumped gallons of “crap” into the water. I was not able to paddle safely for weeks afterward. The water quality is just now improving, I hope that Helene does not do the same thing.
Good luck, down there. (Better yet, heed the warnings.) This one is revving up fast!
-sing
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Thanks.
I ended up installing the hurricane shutters yesterday but it looks as if it will be a miss for me. The good news is that it is moving quickly so it should not drop as much rain as Debby did.
Watching over my neighbor’s house, as he flew down to the FL pan-handle yesterday to help his elderly dad board up the house. It’s in the storm’s path, but hopefully from inland away from the projected 20’ surge…
-sing
It arrived last night in NW SC. The wind is still blowing. There are millions without power here and in GA and NC.
Good luck, String, et al. These intense storms are becoming the “norm.”
-sing
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We were very fortunate. Our house is surrounded by huge trees and only a few branches came down. Others weren’t as fortunate. We’ve had water in the house twice in previous storms but none this time.
It’s a sunny afternoon and cool. Hopefully the power will be back in a day or 3.
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Good luck string
So sad, all the destruction. Glad you made it thru okay, string. Do you have a generator to keep your refrigerator going?
No we don’t. We’ll eat real well for a couple of days.
We get power outages somewhat regularly so last year my birthday gift from my daughter and SIL was a Ryobi battery-start generator. A wonderful gift and timing was perfect as the next day the power went out for a couple of days. It’s easy to start, has Bluetooth, and I can operate it using an app on my phone. It would keep your refrigerator running as well as a couple other things. Home Depot carries it.
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Thanks
We know more than a few who got hammered. Worse two are dealing with cancer one is getting surgery this coming week. Goods news on one is kids flew in immediately to empty the house and help.
God bless all.
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We got power back after about 2 days. Still do not have internet. That may be restored tomorrow.
The barrier islands here took a real hit and are still a mess.
There is one bit good news. Midnight pass was filled in at the request of two home owners in the early eighties. People have been lobbying to have it reopened for the past 40 years with no luck. Hurricane Helene blasted it open on Thursday. As soon as it is safe to travel to Sarasota Key I am going to paddle to the pass and check it out.
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My brother foolishly bought a house in Asheville NC last year and ignored completely my warning that the town of Asheville had experienced sever flooding twice in past 5 years. Now it is 6 times in 6 years.
His house is undamaged but he is living on an island with roads closed and the town water supply not safe to drink and no electrical service or cell service or internet access. I told him to find a motel and stay there for the next several weeks but he will continue to act like a lemming and stay at his house.
At a minimum anyone in such areas should have a 3 week supply of food and a 3 week supply of water and a LP powered generator. No gasoline for cars much less for a gasoline fueled generator.
At my house I installed a fossil gas powered standby generator and have freezer in the garage to provide 5x as much frozen food capacity, and I keep six 5-gallon water cans at my house. The cost to be prepared was roughly $11,000.
I also have a dual fuel plug-in hybrid that can be recharged with the generator and my truck has a 36-gallon gas tank so we can stay mobile when there are power outages on the grid.
I lost everything within 45 seconds with the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake and it took years to recover. At least I was 50 years old at the time. I know that at this point in my life I need to be far more cautious about preparing for global warming and severe weather events. Sadly, my brother is like most people and prefers not to think about such things and so was not at all prepared for this man-made disaster.
The media is not helping to educate people when they refer to this flood in 2024 as a “500-year flood”, much as they did in 1916. One would think that people of even average intelligence would realize that something is seriously wrong. The North Carolina town of Princeville was destroyed by floods twice in 17 years. People chose to rebuild there instead of moving to a safer area to start again.
Glad to hear everyone is OK. And thank goodness the dams held. But I wonder how many storms like this the Tennessee valley system can take before there’s a catastrophic dam failure.