Hurricane Isabel is bearing down on the Tidewater, Virginia, area. It's forecasted to come up across the Outer Banks of North Carolina and then hit us sometime Thursday afternoon or evening with at least Category 2 winds and storm surge. If it maintains it current strength, it could be alot stronger but no one really knows just yet.

I'm going to squeeze the KR in the garage and hope the storm surge doesn't get high enough to reach it but I've got the Chesapeake Bay across the street from my house. The outlook isn't looking real good!

Of course if the winds blow the garage down around the KR, the storm surge won't really matter. I'm expecting the worse and hoping for the best.

 

ahhh sounds like it's time for a vacation to say Memphis or Miami...take the Ranch..it'll do you good...have your brother in law watch the house for 'ya...he can swim right?

 

Chestnut,

Good luck with the hurricane and I'm sure you'll take care of you, your loved ones and then the truck. I know hurricanes too, I live near Charleston, SC and I've experienced a half dozen myself and I rode out hurricane Hugo in '89, what an experience. I was on Cape Hatteras in '76 when Hurricane Bell hit that area, two days later I almost drowned trying to surf at the lighthouse in Hatteras in waves as high as a two story house about two football fields out from the shore, whew I'm lucky to be alive today after that experience. I'm watching that hurricane closely as it resembles Hugo more than I'd like to admit and SC is not out of the woods yet.

Take Care and try to keep in touch,

~DM~

 

Well, you must have seen Nor-easters come through and should know if the water will rise to your location, so don't play it too tuff, get out of the way and come back for the insurance check.
But if you need to... I got some family in the York Town, area.
Any way good luck....
King-O-The-Road

 

My mother lives on the coast of Florida. She refuses to evacuate. The authorities once came to her door to advise her that it was a mandatory evacuation. She asked if she would be arrested if she didn't. They said no, but asked for the names of her next of kin. She gave them, then went back to fixing her dinner. She said she didn't even have a power outage.
Anyhow, good luck to you! Give us a post after Isabel passes.

 

Whatever your decision may be, just be careful. You can replace a truck but you can' t replace loved ones. Use your smarts, a hurricane is very serious and the last thing I would ever want to here is if you or one of your loved ones was hurt or killed. If danger is imminent bugger off and move inland. I hope everything turns out fine and you don' t sustaine any losses, keep us posted from time to time and god bless you and your family.

Pat/bluelightning

 

Chestnut,

Take a vacation man, Pack the brood in th King and go for a drive, worst case you lose a day of work and have a "king" kinda' road trip...

Mama's in the Navy and has the "watch" Friday which makes her "essential personnel" and since I can't leave her behind we will tough it out but in MD it will not be as bad as the lower Chesapeake.

If you can go then go, the house is insured (but for Gods sake don't leave the truck <even if it's Chestnut> since the body shop work never looks the same )

Note: just spent a TON on last minute tree removal (better to cut it down out of my yard than cut it out of my bedroom )

Pooh

Edit.. I lived in Key West during Andrew, I evacuated to Tampa, 2 days later going through South Fla. it looked like an "A" bomb hit the place, I have never seen such devastation. These storms are DEFINITELY nothing to be laughed at.

 

Pooh,
Drove through south Florida months after Andrew and was totally amazed at the rubble which still remained. Windows which had blown out were still unrepaired, etc. The pictures on the news just don't convey the impact of seeing it first hand.
I have tried to convince my mother to leave when the big ones threaten, but to no avail.

Chestnut - Keep us posted when you are able!

 

Chestnut, Poohbear - are you all out there? If so, give us a sign.

Thanks!

 

Thanks for worrying Boss,

It's been an experience, I actually fared well on the damage side. I had an oak that was about 90-100ft overhanging my house that I had cut down Wed. I hated to kill the grand thing but I did not want to be in my neighbors position, a smaller tree went through the bedroom roof and into the living room. Fortunately noone was hurt (I'll see if I can get pics) the boss had one trash his deck and barely miss the house. I am glad it wasn't an Andrew class storm. My worst was a bug branch on my fence and no lights, cable, phone, internet for 5 days. Many fared much worse and I can be thankful (time to buy a generator )

Floyd wasn't nearly as bad except for the rain, fortunately Isabel moved through quickly so flooding wasn't as bad as predicted. Virginia and North Carolina took the brunt of the storm.

Status: Power was back on this morning (lineman are VERY under-rated) cable and Internet were up when I got home today, phone is still down but on my way home I saw the Verizon truck...

I was kinda' smelly for a few days (cold showers and instant coffee made from grill heated water is cool when you intentionally go camping ) but I can truly count my blessings on this one.

NUFF RAMBLING....

Pooh

NOTE: Chestnut, how are ya' man? Guys (and now gals <vs gal>) some people are WEEKS away from getting power and Internet online. Chestnut, hope you made it OK...

 

Hurricane Isabel is now two weeks past and things are starting to get back to normal around here. We got hit pretty hard and it was only a Cat 1 when it finally got here. Although I suffered only minor damage to my house (roof shingles gone and buckled siding), there's a lot of people around here who lost much, much more. The main damage was caused by trees falling down on houses. The ground was already saturated to its limit and combined with the high winds, the trees had nothing to hold them in place. They fell over like tooth picks. Some of the root bases were enormous. We also had reports (unconfirmed) that a tornado touched down in the Buckroe Beach section of the city. I took a drive through there on one of my twelve hour midnight shifts and it looked like a war zone! Storm surge caused a lot of flooding in low lying areas. Lots of peoples houses were flooded out - 3 or 4 feet of standing water in their living rooms. Fortunately, the water receeded when the tide went out but by that time, the damage was already done. Most people, including myself, were without power for an average of seven days. That's an interesting way to live. You never realize how much you take electricity for granted until you don't have it for an extended period.

Anyway, Isabel's gone and now its time for clean-up. There's piles of debris laying on the streets all over the city mainly in the residential areas. Its like driving an obsticle course. It'll take months to haul everything away. But, you gotta start somewhere. All in all, , it could have been a lot worse. Lets hope we don't have to do that again for a long time.

 

Glad to hear that things weren't any worse for you !!!

Best of luck to you and yours

John

 

I echo Lenny's sentiments.... we're very glad that you guys are okay and wish you luck in the coming weeks/months with cleanup.

RP

 

Chestnut,

Glad to hear you are safe and all is getting better. I rode out Hurricane Hugo here in Charleston in '89 and it was a high level catagory 4 with wind gusts of 160 MPH and numerous tornados touched down too. It took us two years to get things back right and we were without power, running water and phones for two weeks. Well, I don't want to dwell on Hugo but it was very very bad and I can only tell you a little bit before I start to have flashbacks.

Glad you're back...

Later,

~DM~

 

Chestnut,

Welcome back, I was getting worried ...)

Pooh