Hurricane's direction is looking bad for me.

vcwatkins wrote: »

Looks like 2:00am will be the first real test at Kure Beach, as eyewall will be getting close and high tide is ~1:30a. <gulp>

Dibs on SketchyCraig's best stuff!

Mikey, your avatar gives me the willies.
Not the heebie-bee-gees (Sgt. Pepper soundtrack era), but close.

Mikey081057 wrote: »

But that would be if that road is at sea level right?

Yes.
But I do know that the water in Oriental NC, for example, was less than1' below flood, and that's before the surge really hit.
So lop off 3-ish feet of that 9.
It's still going to be brutal. And then the rain will come, and have no place to drain.

Scott, you should make your avatar into the other MacGruber.

Tony, have we lost you?

Duke Energy predicted that 75% of it's customer base will lose power with this one. I don't know if this includes Progress Energy (since they own them too) but that's a very large area with just Duke.

The sheer amount of support personnel, linesman, Red Cross, supply trucks, the National Guard and the like in this area (Charlotte and surrounding areas) is incredible. Most have been staged for the past two days. All hotels are full, all temporary shelters are full and they keep opening up more. People are starting to open up their own homes to house some of the rescue and support personnel.

We watched the circular shape of the clouds move in yesterday afternoon along with a breeze. Last night, the wind was brisk. It's still dark right now and according to the news, the eye just hit land. Winds are stronger than I had thought they would be at this point but nothing (yet) to cause any damage. The first band of rain should hit us around 2:00pm today.

Locally, the threat of spin up tornadoes has increased two fold since we will be on the Northern sheer of the hurricane. These are nothing like the 'nader's in tornado alley (like F-3's and up) and they are stating that they will be short lived but that conditions are ripe for them. Cold is meeting hot right at the Northern edge of the storm and when you throw in the circulation of the storm? End result is the high potential for tornadoes.

Still, it looks like rain will be the biggest factor in damage in our area. Even though it's currently a Cat1, it is moving slow and the Northern band will basically cup right around Charlotte. We will get wind from 3 different directions as it's basically making a "U" turn around us, using Charlotte as the top of the "U". That's gonna be historic rain for us...which will result in flooding. Not like 9-10 feet of coastal flooding but enough to be a little more than a headache. The locals already know where the major flooding will be but there will be a few "surprises" for us, I'm sure.

360,000 currently without power. Home prep for me today, shop for last minute supplies and then time to hunker down for a couple of days. Let the fun begin!

Tom

Probably will, Tony. LOL

Tom

Stay safe everyone!!!!

Backside gusts are pretty rough - guessing 60-80. We never got much calm in the eye, but here are a few shots. Just had a couple 100+.

vcwatkins wrote: »

Landfall at Kure Beach was at low tide. No significant overwash reported. Pretty sure we lost a north side window about 2:00.

In town the gusts are decreasing. 6:30-7:30 we had 100+ gusts, lots of trees down around us but no hits. Lost power at 3ish but some neighbors still have pwr and ip. Our street and power runs north-south with the wind so we were largely spared. Gusts have settled to 60-80 now. A lot of rain but nothing remarkable for storm this size. No reports of significant flooding. Looks like areas to north got the worst of that. Definitely crawling compared to past storms.

Yikes, Craig.
Hopefully Florence keeps moving and doesn't pull a Sit 'n Spin on you guys, and that you're not too long without power. Can't really tell if it's overhead power where you are.

Those photos. We've had our share of hurricanes, tropicals and Nor'easters up in VB, but they've been relatively mild for the most part. Worst damage was when we had lots of rain over the weeks prior to a storm. Lots of pine and old oak in the area. Pine sheds easy, and when the oak goes, it goes big. Then there's the flooding. Mostly due to overload and/or drains and pipes clogged, not maintained.

@Tony M , you okay?

That’s creaping fig on neighbor’s house. It’s a little easier to tame than common ivy, but, yeah, they have a guy, hehe.

Their garage was smashed by 2 more big oaks but they are miraculously still dry.