Posted: 10/6/2016 11:21:39 PM EDT
| How you folks doing down there? |
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I'm sure there will be several AARs following Matthew...it's going to really pack a wallop. Over 250 killed in Haiti (although their situation is much more dire as most live in tin-roof shacks); I think many are going to underestimate the hurricane and overestimate their preparations. This is a significant scenario where "bugging out" should be a major consideration. Prayers out to our neighbors south of us.
ROCK6 |
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You all thinking of evacuation be advised, its a classic government SNAFU.
The highways away from the storm are a mess. They're running six lanes out to only dump it into two with road construction taking down to one. Never saw so many FL cars so they got out first which means that much father away to find hotels. Please keep in mind, these mountains are a hell of a natural barrier. There's only so many east to west roads through them and its bottlenecking. That said, it looks like one of those this side of the mountains sun and super nice weather, the east side rain and funky weather. Perfect camping weather on this side, west side, of the mountains. Having personally lived through a Class III direct hit 45 miles from the Gulf, the eye went right over my home, I'm not going to tell you what to go out and get. Its too late for that. What I'm going to tell you is make the best of it. Approach it as an adventure whether you stay or leave. I always enjoyed and think them so smart the hurricane evaders that come here at the Smoky Mountains to have a good vacation before having to go home and sort things out. If you stay at home, imagine your place just became a camping adventure. In my experience, the worst thing people do in these situations is stress out over it. It makes them abnormally stupid for a lack of a better word. I've seen it. I've seen people so frazzled you tell them "Charge your cell phone in your car" or "Get a bucket of water from the creek to flush your toilet". made them go "Oh yeah.". Stay or leave, a lot of this stuff is make your plan, keep in mind plans include different options otherwise its just a decision, prepare for your plan, implement it, then roll with it. Don't stress out over what you forgot. It just distracts you from what is at hand. It will come to you faster if you have a fresh mind. See you all after the storm and I look forward to your after action reports. Tj |
| Central Gulf coast of Florida... wind 25 with gusts to 35... it's good to be on the western quadrant for a change... good luck to the East coast... quite a few evacuated to this coast the last couple of days...couple of stations out of gas as tankers were diverted to the East |
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I thought about driving an hour down from us to see if the traffic mess was as bad as it was during Floyd, but decided not to.
I notice the traffic isn't being covered a lot in media, it's gotta be a mess. I'm guessing they were doing that to avoid discouraging people from booking. Some in laws that live near Deland went to work yesterday (on call EMS types) and while only 20 minutes away, took them 4 hours, yes 4 hours. Hurricane Floyd evac in Sept of 99 was what pushed me over the edge to move to my retreat full time and avoid the bug out BS. Our county is pretty far inland and isn't on any of the watches/warnings but with some luck we will get a boatload of rain, which we could use. Looking like the worst is going to be NE Florida coast. I lived there for 15 years and we never had a hurricane. Even back then the old timers would always say "we are overdue for a hurricane." Thought that was going to happen with Floyd 17 years ago but it didn't. I'm guessing they are going to get caught up this afternoon. Be safe if your near this. Good luck. |
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Quoted:
You all thinking of evacuation be advised, its a classic government SNAFU. The highways away from the storm are a mess. They're running six lanes out to only dump it into two with road construction taking down to one. Never saw so many FL cars so they got out first which means that much father away to find hotels. Please keep in mind, these mountains are a hell of a natural barrier. There's only so many east to west roads through them and its bottlenecking. That said, it looks like one of those this side of the mountains sun and super nice weather, the east side rain and funky weather. Perfect camping weather on this side, west side, of the mountains. Having personally lived through a Class III direct hit 45 miles from the Gulf, the eye went right over my home, I'm not going to tell you what to go out and get. Its too late for that. What I'm going to tell you is make the best of it. Approach it as an adventure whether you stay or leave. I always enjoyed and think them so smart the hurricane evaders that come here at the Smoky Mountains to have a good vacation before having to go home and sort things out. If you stay at home, imagine your place just became a camping adventure. In my experience, the worst thing people do in these situations is stress out over it. It makes them abnormally stupid for a lack of a better word. I've seen it. I've seen people so frazzled you tell them "Charge your cell phone in your car" or "Get a bucket of water from the creek to flush your toilet". made them go "Oh yeah.". Stay or leave, a lot of this stuff is make your plan, keep in mind plans include different options otherwise its just a decision, prepare for your plan, implement it, then roll with it. Don't stress out over what you forgot. It just distracts you from what is at hand. It will come to you faster if you have a fresh mind. See you all after the storm and I look forward to your after action reports. Tj Yep, that's what happened in 2003 when Isabel came thru here. It was a weak Cat 2 when it got here. We lost 3 trees and power for 5.5 days. We were literally camping in our own house. I found that I can't sleep in heat and humidity. Was largely dysfunctional by Day 5. Decided then and there to not get caught like that again. In 2011 when a weak Cat 1 came rolling thru, it knocked out power for 2.5 days. Had the genny going, portable A/Cs running in the bedrooms, and it was all-in-all just a minor inconvenience. If a hurricane such as a 4 or 5 hits here, I'm evac'ing. Everything's insured pretty well although the "Tropical Cyclone Deductable" is ridiculously large. That's something to take a look at when you examine how much homeowner's (and other) insurance you need. I figure there's a difference between bugging out for convenience and bugging out because I may not have a house to come back to. Planning, prep, and packing would be completely different between those two scenarios. Stay safe down there in hurrycane land! |
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I left with my pregnant wife and two year old on Wednesday. Traffic was not bad heading westbound out of Jacksonville. We must have passed 100 or so cherry pickers heading east. We are hanging out with my in-laws in Waveland, MS. We secured the house and will hope for the best. After riding out Katrina in Gulfport,MS, I was not hanging around for this one. I'm going to head down to the French Quarter for lunch and a Hurricane of my own.
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| TomJefferson: Over the years that I have been on ARFCOM SF & GD, I have heard/seen it time & time again, the highways are blocked because of construction. There is never a time where the highways are NOT being worked on. So your advice is good. If you are going to evac, do it way before the crowds hit |
| The flooding in eastern NC is going to be really bad. I just saw an image showing radar estimates of 7" of rain an hour just south of Fayetville. I was in Newport News, VA a little while ago and it was raining hard but really no flooding but the EAS just came on saying there is a flash flood warning for the whole area now. |
We are in the northern piedmont, about 35 mile nw of Durham, NC. Pretty much continuous rain for a couple of days - maybe 7 inches between yesterday & today. Winds have not been bad around here, so we pretty much dodged the bullet that has hit the more south-east portions of the state. No power issues, but since we put in the whole house system recently, we have made our neighborhood pretty much outage proof for at least the next couple of years .
Nick |
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My inlaws/family all live with in 5 miles of the coast in volusia county. Me and my brother live further inland. I'll be doing a AAR what I could a would a shoulda ..once we get on grid. Day 3 of no power. Sewer lift stations are out as well. Out comes the camp toilet lol I hate trees My chainsaw did good. Roads flood here I hate trees Hickory nuts hurt.  I wore a multicam hat..... |
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Just want to thank everyone for the info over the years. Didn't get tested very much but on the other hand had minimal stress and anxiety compared to the masses.
Thought about going to the stores just to take pics of animated sheep but took the time to relax at home. My acquaintances know more about my preps than I thought. Lots of jokes over being prepared for zombie apocalypse. What could a little old cat 4 hurricane do to someone like that
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We got back this afternoon in Savannah GA thanks to a friend. My neighborhood was mostly spared (we don't have any big trees), just missing shingles and some debris.
It looks like we'll be without power for a few days. We went to a grocery store while we were at the farm to top off supplies. My somewhat small food supplies at the farm (BOL) came in handy with extra people there. I can't begin to say how happy I am to have the generator, fuel, and plenty of propane for my grill! Before we left I put our chest freezer on the lowest setting it would go and it only got up to about 20 degrees while we were gone! My wife even thought to get some extra ice so I have a couple beers in the cooler 
I expect the grocery stores and gas stations to be crazy for the next few days so we're planning to lay low. My wife and some other family members are already much more interested in having food and other supplies on hand so that's good. I need to do a little better with keeping up with my water stock and canned goods, but we can eat and drink like normal for a week or so easily. I hope everyone else here has as little damage as we did. I know quite a few people in town with trees on or through their roof. |
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Quoted: We got back this afternoon in Savannah GA thanks to a friend. My neighborhood was mostly spared (we don't have any big trees), just missing shingles and some debris. It looks like we'll be without power for a few days. We went to a grocery store while we were at the farm to top off supplies. My somewhat small food supplies at the farm (BOL) came in handy with extra people there. I can't begin to say how happy I am to have the generator, fuel, and plenty of propane for my grill! Before we left I put our chest freezer on the lowest setting it would go and it only got up to about 20 degrees while we were gone! My wife even thought to get some extra ice so I have a couple beers in the cooler I expect the grocery stores and gas stations to be crazy for the next few days so we're planning to lay low. My wife and some other family members are already much more interested in having food and other supplies on hand so that's good. I need to do a little better with keeping up with my water stock and canned goods, but we can eat and drink like normal for a week or so easily. I hope everyone else here has as little damage as we did. I know quite a few people in town with trees on or through their roof. Post more for us won't you.......  |
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Not sure what else to say right now, but I'm happy to answer questions! Since I'm just up having a beer I'll dump my thoughts so far.
Things I think I did well: We have basic non-perishable food items at home along with frozen meat etc so we are fine for a week or so of 100% normal meals and a few weeks if we tried to really stretch things. I also have the basics at the farm along with some chocolate, popcorn, etc etc so we were in good shape whIle we evacuated. I hooked up the projector and we watched movies on the wall. We never lost power and the small town nearby doesn't have a hotel so no evacuees. We went out to dinner one night and you couldn't tell anything was going on. I got some shooting in during the day and verified the zero on an AR and my deer rifle. So the remote BOL is a big plus. I need a ham radio or something. We don't have cable or Internet, and cell phone service is spotty so it was a little difficult getting news. My dad got an antenna for the tv that picked up about 10 channels so that was great. I will make a point here to say that my wife is not a big shooter, but she is familiar with all of my firearms and how to work them. I gave her a 9mm and a spare mag that she carried and we kept an AR close to us at all times. I didn't expect any trouble but you never know when people could run out of patience or just be in the wrong place at the wrong time (more on that later). A few things I did wrong (don't give me too hard of a time, hopefully everyone gains something from my mistakes) My wife is pregnant and neither of us though to take her prenatal vitamins with us. Normally neither of take medicine and we have all the first aid and basic meds at the farm so it just slipped our minds until we went to bed the first night. This could have been prevented with a checklist of what we need. As stated in my last post, I have been lazy lately with tracking water and food stock. I only had 2 cases of water at home. Luckily we were able to get all we wanted at the grocery store out of town. I did have a 55 gallon drum full of rainwater for gray water so that was good, although I don't think I'll need it. I put off refilling one of my propane tanks and forgot it wasn't full. I have two other tanks at home and brought a third home from the farm, but I felt like an idiot when I was moving them and lifted an empty one. 
I think I need to store more ammo at the BOL and less at home. I found myself choosing what ammo cans to take vs what to leave. It would be bad to lose ammo in a flood or due to looting. On the same note, my reloading equipment was difficult to gather and pack up so I left most of it. Maybe I shouldn't mount it all to my bench... I should have packed clothes for work in case I ended up needing to commute from the farm for a few days. Other thoughts: I'm very interested in a battery bank for silent power at night. I fired up the generator when we got home to cool the freezer and charge up stuff. Several others were running then and even now I can hear one running down the street. You can hear it from a block or so away. I don't like drawing attention so I'll be looking into adding a muffler to my generator and a battery bank for any power needs after dark. I saw in an old thread where someone rigged an RC propeller, motor, and battery to their ceiling fan. A way to move air without running the generator would be nice, especially with a pregnant wife! Luckily it's supposed to get down in the 50s but summer would be rough tonight without running the generator and portable AC unit. Lastly, people run out of patience in a hurry and only care about themselves. I almost got blocked in during a bathroom stop on the way home (pregnant wife) because people just started parking everywhere. Poor situational awareness would've left us stuck until someone moved. We encountered many traffic lights that were out and not only did people not stop from other directions and treat it as a 4 way stop, but a guy behind me even crossed to the wrong side of the road to pass me instead of stopping at an intersection. |
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Today After getting off shift and grabbing four hours of sleep in the high school. We rallied back at the Airport to get ready for another night. The NG passed out a ton of MREs and Bottled Water.
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Thanks LASNYDER.
I have no idea how, but our power just came back on!!
When we went through a GA NG roadblock each guy had one pmag on his plate carrier but no rifles. We came through with a work permit before the general population. We've been helping some of my wife's family clear trees and now going to help my parents cut their way to their house. They live in a neighborhood on an island outside of town so they have a lot more trees down. |
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I stayed in Savannah for the storm. I live between midtown and the east side.
No damage to my house other than a couple screens being blown off. We got a good deal of rain and wind. There were a lot of trees and branches down, but clean up crews are taking care of those rapidly. I felt like I should help but .gov passed on to leave it to the pros. My power is still out but I have water and my water heater is gas. I feel fortunate. I work a lot and this has been some nice down time. I was well prepared in most respects. If the weather wasn't so nice life without AC would be harder. I work outside so I'm pretty heat tolerant, but it's still not fun to sweat yourself to sleep. I've discovered that other than steaks, my grilling ability is fairly bad. It also takes a lot of time to prepare meals in non standard ways. If my situation required more work it would've been a drag. In the future I'm going to get food that doesn't require as much time and energy to prepare. Ive been charging my iPad and phone in my truck. I think I will look for a different way to change them. |
| in 2004/2005 I found that bamboo skewers were the way to cook on a small tailgate type grill... with the hot water heater out, there was no additional cookware , plates, or silver ware to clean ... chicken and pork cut to 3/4" squares, with a piece of onion or tomato between pieces...a little soy sauce, and was like being back in the Philippines |
| I am in Hampstead NC on the coast north of Wilmington. Power was out for about a day some a little longer. Other side of county is flooded. River is up about 10 feet i think and evacuated about 4000 people i think. Lots of homes under water. This is a after affect as i think water supposed to peak Friday. It wasnt bad at all but we had been getting a lot of rain and some areas were flooded just a week before. |