What Tomorrow Brings...

As the wind and rain begins to lash the Carolina coast, we have done just about all we can here to get ready for this hurricane. Deck chairs and all smaller potted plants are either under the deck or in the garage. The grill has been moved as far as we can get it into the lee of the house. Hanging plants are all down. The table is upside down on the deck so it won't catch the wind.

We went out and did some shopping today, not so much out of absolute necessity but more to join the communal effort to do what we could to prepare. Better safe than sorry. I picked up a few bottles of wine at the liquor store, and it was a total mob scene. I think the last time I can remember it being that crowded was the lead up to New Years Eve. The cashier said it had been that way since they opened. The supermarket in the same shopping center appeared overrun as well. To try to get some food items we wanted we decided to go to Target instead, which was very crowded but manageable. I checked on a few items out of curiosity, and was not all surprised to find them unavailable: bottled water, flashlights and batteries being the most obvious. We are well set for all of those kind of necessities and have stocked in enough easy food items to last for several days at least.

The last errand of the day was to go to a home improvement store to get a few things so we can hopefully work on some house projects while we are stuck in. A gallon of trim paint, some masking tape. Stuff like that.

The current forecast has the storm ramping up in our area around dinner time tomorrow (Saturday) and going full blast until around dawn on Sunday. It is expected to lessen throughout the remainder of the day on Sunday, and by the time Monday rolls around we are supposed to be left with cleaning up whatever damage it has left behind. The storm tracker on the Weather Channel website actually has it not as bad as it was earlier in the day, showing a category 1 hurricane with 85 mph winds at the Outer Banks by Saturday pm, and a non-hurricane with 70 mph winds at Connecticut by Sunday pm.

I hope that all this turns out to be like many other forecasted blizzards and storms, where what you actually get turns out to be far less than the worst case scenario that the experts detailed. My kids ask me what the storm is going to be like, and all I can tell them is that it may be more rain and wind than they have ever seen. For all I know it could be more rain and wind than I have ever seen. I hope not.