Hurricane Evacuation II

L

Larry Eckart

Well-known member
Guys,
I grew up in southern Illinois. Spent 26 years as a pastor in Michigan. The last seven years I have served in South Carolina. For the first five years on Hilton Head, all I heard was, "hurricanes go around Hilton Head, Pastor."

Then last year there was Matthew and 125,000 trees blown down on the island. Matthew was a Category 1.

Now here comes Irma, and the governor of South Carolina just declared that the coastal counties must evacuate starting Saturday.

The storm is going up through North Carolina on a peculiar track that bends west. We will evacuate to Raleigh and wait for Irma to catch up with us there. "Evacuate" was never in my vocabulary in Illinois or Michigan.

In the pic below I am on the left with a friend in one of our many days after Matthew running chain saws.

This should be interesting,
Larry



View attachment DSC_0391.JPG
 
My sister is trying to get out of. Charleston. Hotels inland a booking up fast.
 
I feel your pain,,,, Last year we were skirted by Matthew. Heavy winds and rain but not to much damage. I don't think we'll be so lucky this time. She's supposed to come in as a CAT 4 or 5 around or close to our general area. Spent the day getting ready and helping everyone else get ready, and have tomorrow to get everything as secure as we can. I've lived in Florida my whole life and have been through a bunch of storms over the years, but none have had me on edge as much as this one. Well wishes to anyone in it's path
Be Safe, Jeff
 
Good luck Jeff. If you are headed out, I hope you have lots of gas. I have heard from a couple of people of gas stations being empty. Hope your place escapes too much damage. My mom and aunt came over from jacksonville here to tallahassee. Ought to be fun.

Larry it is looking better and better for the Carolinas.

Stay safe yall....
 
I keep watching and thinking of the DBHF brothers and sister. Get away if in doubt and be safe.

Mark
 
Thanks Dani. We stayed and decided to ride it out. Gas and everything else has been crazy. Home depot, Lowes, the gas stations and Publix must have made a fortune in the last week. Lucky for us the track kept shifting west. So, not going to be as bad as first thought. I don't know if your mom and aunt made the trip over or not , but they might have been better off to stay in Jacksonville. It looks like you could possible be dealing with this now. I know I'll be glad when it's over.

Good luck and stay safe, Jeff
 
This has definitely been a crazy storm. And goes to show how even our predictions for storms can be proven to be just that....wild ass guesses. I was talking to Steve and Debby and they were saying how they had friends who live in SE FL so they evacuated to SW FL. Only now to have to haul butt back home to the relative safety of their own homes. I get that mass evacs like this are expensive and can create lots of disgust perhaps with the weather people, but it is still better safe than sorry with a beast like Irma. At least up here in Tally, there is about 400 miles of peninusla south of me to slow her down....if only she would get around to making landfall. My biggest concern is if she decides to tell the weather guessers to go spit and she decides to hang out in the gulf.

My mom and aunt did evacuate here. It is looking lots better for her house that is for sure, though she is still in the mandatory evacuation zone in Jacksonville and from what I saw, they are keeping that mandatory evac in place. From what I saw for here, we should be dealing with hurricane 1 winds here in Tallahassee. But that is based on her following the path laid out by the weather guessers and she begins to head over land as she makes her way north. And she seems to have had a mind of her own so far. So for now....we are just in a wait and see mode

She is a massive storm so Im sure youll feel a good bit where you are. Dont get blown away...
 
We woke up this morning to heavy squalls of wind and rain. It's hard to say what the storm will do, but it looks like it is finally making it's turn north. Maybe.... make land fall near or around Marco Island. They are forecasting the heaviest part of the storm to hit here somewhere between 5 and 9 pm. They are saying we could get gusts up to 100 mph with sustained winds of 75 mph. Hopefully we don't lose power.....

Probably best your Mom and Aunt got out of there. It's definitely better to play it safe.

To all involved in this.... Be Safe, and good luck
 
Packed up the Family & Pets on Wednesday. Thursday AM at 4:30 left our house in Ft. Myers. We're about 1/2 a mile from the Caloosahatchee River. A normal ten hour drive to NE Alabama took us 21hrs. I'm hopeful, but expecting the house to be flooded pretty good. Hoping my shed-barn doesn't get blown away. Filled a number of duck boats with water and chained one to an oak tree...
 
Dereck, I was thinking about Eric and you. From the looks of it you made a smart move, and well worth the 21hr effort. Hope y'all make it through without to much damage.
 
Hope everyone is ok.

I'm in central Ga and we got absolutely hammered. Can't imagine what yall in florida and on the coast saw.
 
Thought of you as we drove back South through Macon. I-75 is stupid with a million people using it. Took me over 24hrs of solid driving to get home. Garage was saturated pretty good, but water didn't get above my finished floor elevation. Answer to prayers. Overall damage at my place was minimal. Don't wanna understate the damage for many people in my area. Guys from work got hammered. I was pretty fortunate. Plenty of cleanup to do but don't need to have an insurance adjuster out so that was an answer to prayer. One neighbors place flooded two doors down and another lost some trees equal to mine in size which took out their garage. Wind seemed to blow right through mine and the power was back on by the time we got home today.

Thanks Jeff and anybody else. Since my truck is a diesel I don't even have to wait in line for fuel...[whistle]
 
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