Matthew

[hddecker]

Thinking of all on the east coast that are heading for the high ground. Hope you are all in a safe place and Matthew takes an eastern path and dies out over the Atlantic.

Take care we're with you in spirit.

[wahoonc]

We will be beating feet, early tomorrow morning for the foothills of NC. I have ridden out my fair share of hurricanes over the years. Hugo, Fran, Floyd and Katrina. As long as I gots wheels and gas I are gone when they come a calling. My homeplace is in the Sandhills of NC. We are supposed to get more rain (on top of the 11" we got last week ) so a fair bit of flooding is expected. My place is on a ridge, so the property will be fine, just won't be able to get to it.

This is a picture of the church we got married at. It is about 5 miles down the road, the picture was taken before the flood crested about 10' above flood stage. Currently they can't get to it because one road washed out and the bridge was damaged on the other one. I am sure it will get whacked again in the next round too. The river that flooded this is about 40' behind the church.

Aaron

[nineoaks]

Latest thing is it might do a heavy turn near Wilmington N/C and head back this way, if it goes into the Gulf we will get it in N/W Fla. this pass, hopefully it will die out after the turn..

[Mole]

Rode it out in Orangeburg, SC. Worked a structure struck by falling tree, got home to no power and the battery giving up the ghost in the handheld on Saturday morning. Finally got to charge the radio today with the generator we have for boondocking with the trailer. Only big enough to run a microwave but it does work well in these emergencies. Lots of trees down in our area and it seems like every one of them was hitting power lines.

[wahoonc]

Well Matthew is now history... glad that one went away quick and didn't do a boomerang.

We are still in the foothills of NC where the weather has been great. The outer bands got about 45 miles from us so we dodged the bullet. According to other family members our place(s) in the Sandhills are find, just can't get to them due to a number of roads and bridges flooded out. We will be heading home on Wednesday if possible. Power was out briefly at my house, but was back on within a couple of hours. Got to love those EMC guys.

Y'all stay safe!

Aaron

[hddecker]

Glad to see that sucker head back out over the Atlantic, last news report I saw said, Matthew was just about down to a tropical storm. I hope the levees and damns hold with all that rain.

I've been closer to a tornado, than I ever wanted to be, I can't imagine something as big as a hurricane roaring towards you.

[nineoaks]

Being born and raised in Fl. I can say (as do most people here) give me a hurricane anytime over a tornado. I can at least get prepared for a hurricane but a tornado is unpredictable and you never know when it will pop up or where / what it is gong to do. Were lucky this time here in N/W Fla. as we got no rain (we could use a little) and the sun shined, the Rodeo in Bonifay went off with no problems as did the parade. I have friends and family in S.C. and N.C. who were not so lucky.

[hddecker]

Roy & Mary,

I'd just so soon avoid both, I was just talking size of the storm. Tornados look like little pins on the map, compared to the size of a hurricane.

The toranado that hit my Alberta home town, only left a swath a few hundred feet wide. Like you said they can form in a hurry and be gone just as quick. My cousin as at work when it hit, she heard the roar, looked out the window just before the roof was ripped off the building. Kind of funny now loking back, her boss had just went to the warehouse when the roof blew off. Once it passed he ran into the office, couldn't see my cousin and thoght the worst. A couple of minutes later he sees this pile of rubble shifting, where her desk was. She pulls herself out from under her desk and dusts herself off, quite the conversation topic at the 100th anniversary reunion, of my family arriving in Canada.

[WoodlawnDon]

Damn, those floods are something, very fortunate to have never had to weather anything like that.

But one thing did occur to us as we watched on tv. With a trailer now, we have a form of an emergency plan. If time allows, we could hook up and head for the hills if disaster was imminent. I suspect the weak link would be finding enough gas along the way to keep the truck pulling.

[hddecker]

Don,

Wow, what happened in NS? They had one of those storms last year too.