So I don’t know if you’ve heard the news, but there’s a hurricane looming down on the Carolinas this weekend. We live in the Charlotte metro area, so we won’t be experiencing the unforgiving center of the storm, but all signs point to heavy, heavy rain with some wind bursts in there for good measure.
And normally I wouldn’t worry about heavy rain and wind – I know our house will most likely fare well. We are on a small hill on top of a HUGE hill in our neighborhood, and so I know our house won’t flood at all. I’ve told our friends in the back of the neighborhood (and subsequently the lowest elevation compared to the rest of the ‘hood) to make their way to our house if they find they start to experience high water levels. I’m not necessarily concerned about power outages – our lines are buried, and the odds of our transformer blowing out is relatively slim. If it does happen, we likely will only lose power for a couple of days, not weeks. We have plenty of flashlights and camping lights, as well as portable battery chargers for phones.
Knowing those things though, I did stop in at the store yesterday to stock up on non-perishables on the off-chance we lose power. Pop-Tarts were high on the list, as well as potato chips, Oreos, Oatmeal Creme Pies, fruit cups, and shelf-stable drinks. The good news is that if we never lose power and therefore don’t have to worry about eating non-perishable foods only, I bought stuff that can be used in the kids’ school lunches going forward. Win win. Fortunately, we have a gas stove so we’d still be able to cook some stuff even in an outage, so I really don’t think I even needed to worry about buying non-perishables. But I’ll use any excuse I can to buy Pop-Tarts and Oreos. Also of note, we are on city water so I don’t think we’d lose water at all, although I do plan on filling the bathtubs with water so that we can flush toilets as needed if water does go out. But I don’t think it will.
Nope. The only thing I’m truly worried about is the trees. During Hurricane Hugo in 1989, Charlotte lost a total of 80,000 trees in that one storm.  It was the trees that caused most of the damage. A few years ago we had several trees removed from our backyard. We originally had almost 2 dozen trees of various sizes in our backyard – we got rid of all but 6 of them a few years ago. And while I’m not worried about OUR trees (which are pretty healthy for the most part), I am definitely worried about the trees in the backyard of the house behind ours. A couple years ago I contacted the homeowners via email (we were on friendly terms with them) and sent them a couple pictures of two of their trees from our view, showing how far over they tilted toward our house. Told them we’d be willing to help with the cost to have those two trees cut down should it be determined they were unhealthy. Emails were ignored, and those homeowners eventually sold and moved to another part of town.
The new homeowners have only been in the house for a few months, and while I have met and talked to them, I do not feel comfortable saying, “Hey, nice to meet you – can you do something about these two trees?” So I’ve said nothing. But now that Florence is bearing down and threatening to dump upwards of 9” of rain in 2 days, I worry that the ground will lose integrity and that those trees will begin to tip even more – especially if the wind comes along and helps out. And if they tip and fall – guess where they’d land? Well, one would come straight through CootieGirl’s bedroom (which is why if the storm/rain/wind does get bad, she’ll be sleeping on the family room sofa). The other one, while not as big, could still come through the master bathroom and cause some damage/injury. So it’s possible that Denis and I will be sleeping on the sleeper sofa in the living room if the storm/rain/wind gets bad. Fortunately, CootieBoy’s room is on the front side of the house – we have no trees on that side of the house – so he’ll be fine.
That is my main concern. I’m praying that the storm continues to wind down as it approaches land so that the coast does not suffer catastrophic wind damage, although despite it slowing down it is still essentially the size of NC and SC combined (which is a crazy thought) and so we’ll all still definitely have issues with flooding as a result of the storm. I’m just hoping here in Charlotte they are easy things like power outages versus “there’s a large tree in my bedroom.”
For current views from 34 miles off the NC coast, consider visiting this YouTube page, which shows a live shot of what’s happening. As of this morning that flag was 100% intact, but as of 3:25 p.m., it’s starting to look more than a bit rough around the edges:
Featured image courtesy NASA Johnson (https://www.flickr.com/photos/nasa2explore/42827451650/)
