Hurricane Florence headed to the East Coast

It’s OFFICIAL! Jim Cantore from The Weather Channel is in Wilmington, North Carolina preparing for his coverage on Hurricane Florence. He was spotted at Buffalo Wild Wings in Wilmington, NC (Monkey Junction) tonight.



Yesterday...


After Jim shows up...

 

Groceries decimated and generators and gas cans all gone.

 

That's pretty wild in the daytime, First the wind hits you from one direction, Then its calm and then here the wind comes from the opposite direction!
For those whom haven't been in the eye of the storm then you need that on your bucket list..lol

 

The eye of Hurricane Bertha was my only daytime direct hit. Most storms seem to come at night. I just put in my ear plugs and go to sleep. No need worrying about things that go bump or crash. Nothing I can do about them until the storm passes. If I wake up wet or see the stars above me I'll know it's time to wake up.

 

Yep. I was fooled by Bertha big time. Thought it was over and done, then we got the backside which was much worse.

 

Yesterday, guy in line in front of me at tractor supply was totally freaked out trying to buy a generator. He had no real clue about needing things for it like oil or a gas can. We are 200+ miles in land, in the Carolinas.

 

Most people buy food the same way ,when they need it. A lot buy food by the day,stopping by Walmart on the way home.

 

1D10Ts....

 

I hope they have more shipments coming in for the last minute shoppers. Sadly, some people may not know a hurricane is coming because they tune out the news on weekends.

 

That's how you pick up cheap generators with fuel/carb. problems after the fact.

 

Ugh! Most of these last minute buyers have unrealistic expectations of what their new generator can do and are a greater danger to themselves and power company workers than the storm was. It's funny, but it's the folks who are inland that are really in need of the generators. I've only had the lights flicker a couple times in 30 years here because the power to most of the beach is underground.
It's inland, where power lines will be taken down by trees that will have long-term outages.

Me. Never owned a generator, never even considered it. Lived under canvas, eating out of cans for many moons. Electricity is nice, but hardly a necessity.

This is what I fear most.

 

you think that's bad >>>> wait until he opens the box and tries to operate it - some of these people today don't even have power mowers and a small gas engine is like piloting a spaceship ....

 

look up the UTubes of the command centers for the big box store chains - like Wally World & Home Depot >>>> damn impressive - like a combat center - they started placing stock orders and moving storm related merchandise that direction days ago - then they have another whole program for recovery after the storm ....

 

Then they get the generator home gas it up and it runs for a 15 minuets and stops abruptly ,because they put no oil in the engine and want to claim warranty, and the store laugh's at them.
They try to sell it on ebay and no one want's it because it's junk .
I've seen this many times and not when there is a storm ,it's just plain ignorance and impatient to fallow direction .
Most of us that are mechanically savvy know any engine needs a beak in period, on the first oil fill, and after 10 hours or so do an oil change , other wise the metal particles off the cylinder wall and piston rings from breaking in will accelerate the wear on bearings and seals .
Most small engines have no oil filter like a automotive engine, and are dipper/splash lubricated ( a tab on the connecting rod passes through the oil in the base of the crank case . that's it that's all that is circulating the oil . is splashing onto rotating parts.
So if the oil is too thick it doesn't fly well ,if there I not enough there the dipper cant splash it, it runs dry and seezes up ,and if there is too much it slows the engine putting an extra load on the seals and pushes the excess out the breather . and the wrong oil (detergent ) tend to foam and go out the breather and will literally push all the oil out the engine.
The same with an air compressor for that matter.

 

Bigger issue is the secondary flooding as a result of cities up river releasing water to ease their minor flooding....

 

Anything larger than 5 HP that doesn't come with an hour meter on isn't worth buying unless you plan on it getting stolen from a job site.
And Hot Diggity's comment about a hazard to the linesmen is SO true. "Well just plug it into any handy wall socket, and power the whole house!" Completely forgetting about the mains breaker that's back-feeding the entire neighborhood, nor that when the central AC control circuits get powered, the AC compressor will try to kick on, and either send the genny into overload shutdown or burn it out.
etc ad naseum....
As for your pet tick. Just let them sit until they get 1/4 inch in size. Then they're easy to find..... Eat tons of garlic..... Ticks & skeeters don't like it.