I know I am long overdue for an update on our family's situation regarding Hurricane Florence, and this is my attempt to corral information into one location.
We started monitoring the storm back on Wednesday, September 5, but it wasn't until we saw the forecast on Tuesday, September 11 that we decided to evacuate. On Tuesday morning the forecast was updated to include days of hurricane and tropical storm force winds, rather than hours, and the forecast for rain was updated and being measured in feet, not inches. That was not something we wanted the kids to experience. Thankfully, after living in Wilmington for nearly 11 years, we have learned to simultaneously prepare for riding out storms as well as evacuating, and we already had full tanks of gas in our cars and cash for evacuating. While I went to work on Tuesday morning, Jeff completed the outdoor yard prep for the storm. I arrived home from work around 12:40 and we quickly began preparing to leave.
I am grateful to have responsible children. I simply told the kids "pack for vacation," and they took care of everything we would need while we were away while Jeff and I tackled the indoor storm prep. In addition to storm prep, I managed to eat lunch, wash dishes, pack for myself, and we were on the road by 3:30 in the afternoon. We set a goal of getting out of North Carolina before we stopped for the night, knowing the number of people evacuating would increase immensely on Wednesday.
I am grateful for technology. It was technology that helped us know the storm was coming and the severity, and it was also technology through Google Maps that helped us find back roads out of North Carolina while so many people were stuck creeping up I-40 and I-95. Technology also helped us find a pet friendly hotel in Virginia, through a combination of the hotels.com website and a wonderful customer service agent from hotels.com who located and booked a room for us while rooms were being booked so quickly you could watch them disappear from the website in real time.
I am grateful for my family. My immediate family who is safe, as well as my extended family. In the chaos of Tuesday, it wasn't until we were sitting in the parking lot of a sold out Red Roof Inn, packed with zombie parents trying to wrangle children and dogs after 10:00 at night, that we called family and asked if it was okay to arrive the following afternoon with two adults, four kids, and a 70 pound dog and stay indefinitely. Of course it was okay.
I am grateful to be staying in a city filled with plenty of activities for my family to enjoy. On Friday morning, we watched the footage as the eye of Hurricane Florence made landfall at Wrightsville Beach, our weekend hangout, located just a few miles from our house. We showed the kids the footage on TV of Jim Cantore getting knocked sideways as he stood in the middle of the road while the eye came through. The kids thought the location looked familiar, and we explained that it was near the Cape Fear River and was the place we had stood to eat ice cream from Kilwin's two weeks prior. The looks on their faces let us know that we were done watching hurricane footage with the kids around. It is one thing to watch the horrors of a far away city. It is another thing to watch your hometown get ravaged by nature on national TV. So we have been to the aquarium, the art museum, and many parks. We have visited with old friends and have made new friends. We know many of the kids' old friends have not been so lucky, either riding out the storm and listening to the wind and rain in the dark for days on end, or else stuck in hotel rooms in other parts of North Carolina where it was too rainy to get out and enjoy other activities.
I am grateful for friends and neighbors. On Saturday morning we were still wondering who we could ask to check on our house and the appropriate time to do so, when I received the following text from my next door neighbor:
That is the front of our house on Saturday morning, totally intact with the exception of the dead willow tree which needed to be removed anyway. We could tell from the picture that the three tallest trees in our backyard were also still intact. Our neighbor's adult son lives further back in our neighborhood, about a mile from our houses, and he took advantage of a break in the rain to sneak over and check on our houses.
During the night on Saturday, the water began rising throughout our part of town due to the ceaseless rain. The same gentleman who had checked on our house on Saturday morning was rescued from his own house by the National Guard late Saturday or early Sunday. He still made time to go check on the houses again on Sunday, and sent this photo of our yard on Sunday morning. The dirt in our yard marks the water line from Saturday night's flooding. Water came higher than it ever had before, but it didn't reach the house. You can see the mulch in our flower bed still intact. He also knew we were worried about the back of our house, and took the time to peek over the fence (it was too wet to enter) to at least check for major holes in our roof. There weren't any. And people are truly amazing.
I am grateful to be on emergency leave from work. I am able to focus on my family without having to worry about lost wages, working all day from home, or using all of my vacation leave.
I am grateful for the media, both traditional media outlets, as well as social media. Although not a heavy social media user, it has proven invaluable in helping us connect with others as well as tracking the situation at home. Our friends and colleagues are currently echoing exactly what we are hearing from the media. Every interaction is the same. I am told, "DO NOT COME HOME." The message is clear. So for now, we are staying in Cincinnati. As the week progresses, we have determined our criteria for returning home. We need to have electricity (we believe it was restored to our house on Monday), roads need to open (as of Tuesday afternoon there is limited land access to Wilmington), and we need to have easy access to food and gas. Reports remain that the lines to enter grocery stores are long (a limited number of shoppers are allowed in at a time) and the lines for gas are longer. We are very tentatively planning to leave Cincinnati on Friday and arrive home on Saturday, although that is definitely subject to change.
I am grateful to know so many people care about our family. Sometimes it is the most chaotic situations that help you realize how wonderful people truly are.
