Thursday, September 2, 2010

Riding The Storms Out....

Hurricane Fran (1996) from space

I've been through 4 hurricanes. The first was Hurricane Floyd in 1987 when I was living in Ft. Myer's, Florida. The next three were here in Raleigh: Hurricane Fran in 1996; another Hurricane Floyd in 1999 and Hurricane Isabel in 2003. Hurricane Earl is doing his thing out on the North Carolina coastline as I type this. I'm about 3 1/2 hours inland from the NC coast, so I think all we're getting from Earl tonight are lots of clouds and little extra breeze. Thank goodness.

It is very humbling to sit inside your house looking out your windows at full-grown trees, bending toward the ground like they were made of rubber. You hear things crashing into and against your house and you can't go check on it because of windows possibly blowing out or something coming through your house. You are pretty darn helpless. It's gotta be what it's like for the midwest states when they deal with tornadoes. You do all you can to prepare, but there is only so much you can do except ride the storm out and then wait for the silence.......and it's an eerie silence. In a hurricane, this is the eye. Then part two cranks up.

The first sound you'll hear the next morning are chainsaws as some neighbors will already be out cutting trees that have fallen on houses or across roads and driveways. Everyone checks on each other and you help who needs it. Then you survey your damage. We've been soooo lucky through all of these to not have had any major damage done to our house. Lots of debris to pick up, but no damage. I hope the NC coastline and all my buddies out there do ok tonight.....I'm thinkin' about you!

No comments:

Post a Comment