Hurricane Florence headed to the East Coast

Finally been enjoying drier weather here in North Florida. My yard guy finished mowing my three acres.
I check the online hurricane reports every so often.
Last year I had a huge neighbor tree crush my rear privacy fence corner. Had power and phone lines damaged, both had to be totally rerun.
Glad it ain't hitting here.
But my preps are ready.

 

Looks like all our Carolina coast Monkeys need to set condition ZEBRA and secure the weather decks. Y'all stay safe over there!

 

Got the grass mowed. Easier to pick up shingles and branches on short grass.

 

First rain bands hit our AO around noon... over two inches so far... ponding and some flooding in low lying areas... mandatory evacuations in areas along the rivers in Onslow county... read Camp Lejeune, Cherry Point, Camp Geiger... 9 counties with recommended evacuation 4 are not on the coast...

 

Leaving Facebook



Cajun Navy hit the road to help with Hurricane Florence

 

Today in Pacolet SC (about 235~245 miles from the coast) there are already gas stations running out of regular gas. Prices have jumped 10 to 30 cents a gallon.

 

Young neighbors on both sides of me have left town. One family to Florida and one to Tennessee. I wonder how long it will take them to get back.

Two really obscure observations. Box turtles seem to be unusually active, and buzzards seem to be exceptionally lazy, leaving roadkill for me to deal with.

 

ATM' are out of cash and many gas stations out of gas... folks think that after a slight interruption gas will be back... only issue is if the power is not back on very few gas stations have 220v generators so it will stay in the ground....

 

Not a drop here today. Quite pleasant actually. Gas has pretty much dried up. Walmart is limiting water purchases to three cases. Many fast food places and other stores are closed already. Gentleman's clubs in Wilmington are advertising Saturday night parties. That might be overly optimistic.

 

There's a story to go with the picture in the previous post, but working from my phone is too slow to poke it out.

These news knuckleheads were on the beach this afternoon filming a gaggle of Marines bobbing in the surf. I told one to be sure to ask the residents of the beachfront properties if they knew about the three roads. Three roads? I told them the story, and they wanted me to do it on camera, but I told them that wasn't happening... but I'll share the story with you monkeys.

There have been three roads that I remember at North Topsail Beach. One was a beautiful straight stretch of road along a bare stretch of beach, only occasionally broken up by concrete bunkers along the dune line. I took pictures of my 1971 Pontiac Grand Prix along this strand in 1983. These same bunkers still existed until recently along the beach on Camp Lejeune, (They've been covered by the dunes now.) and were likely left from early amphibious training in the area. This first road is now lost somewhere under the surf.

The second road I found about 20 years ago when my son and I visited the the beach. We were crossing from the road at the end of the low dunes just beyond the last enormous beachfront home. I felt the sand suddenly get firm under my feet, and stopped to scrape the sand away from a perfectly preserved double yellow line on a large section of asphalt. We moved along the line and kicked more sand aside to confirm that this was indeed an abandoned road. The lady who owned the nearest property came out and wanted to know what we were doing. I showed her the old roadbed, and when we got to the end she turned and looked back down the just visible yellow lines under the dusting of sand and froze as she realized that they went straight under the middle of her home. She got really pale when I explained that this was the second road, from 1996, and that there was another road that I remembered that was now out under the surf.

She looked like she was going to be ill, so we went back to my car on the third and current road and moved on down the beach.

 

No amount of beach renourishment, sand fencing or wishful thinking will stop the inevitable shifting sands of the beach.

I'm just going to tag this picture as "Before Florence."

 

Haha...I was on that same road in 81 in a 72 Lemans...

It sure has changed since then...

 

Be interesting to take a shot from the same point next week.

Friend of mine got his SC beach house (which was not beach front row, but back in a fairly tree protected area) hit by a hurricane few years back. Said the wind drove water thru the siding and sheetrock inside....he spent a year rebuilding it.

 

Good for NC, bad for SC. Our weather weenie says the new track is from the NC/SC border and down into SC, a complete turn from last nights prediction. Also calling for a 6' storm surge which will put seawater a mile or more inland in spots.

 

Pretty day today. 9/12/18

 

For those staying in the area, the Cajun Navy does have their Zello channel operating. I am not sure if this is the correct channel but this link gives you the zello page for downloading.
The Cajun Navy Dispatch

 

These are the guys and gals you want staying close/with you if you want to eat good !