3speedslow

RobbieTunes

I TOLD you to live a cleaner life.

M_Wales

First ride since Florence came through and went out to check out the damage.

Deal4Fuji

^^^ That split tree is wild, the ground looks undisturbed. How long were you w/o power?

seypat

RVA getting more rain now than during Florence. Same for the rest of the state I think. The VA Tidewater area might be in trouble by the end of the week.

seypat

I thought I did, but not clean enough. I forgot to ask you if you are still in the same line of work as before the move. Or did you change career paths as well?

M_Wales

Doing great.. Power came back yesterday and all if fine here. Went for a short ride today to see the damage and we were very lucky...

Thanks for asking...

Mark

M_Wales

Lost power at 2000 on the 12th and it came back at around 1800 on the 17th.. Generator saved the day and the house has very minor issues..

RobbieTunes

Glad to know.

I do know that the tower windows at New River will bow in at about 80mph winds, and rattle pretty good at 100mph winds.

I've not heard from anyone at Surf City, Topsail, or West Onslow, Hampstead, down into Brunswick County, etc. Very little news out of Southport.

By now, some of the rivers are cresting, and I wonder about the Tar, Neuse, and Cape Fear.

Steve Whitlatch 

The rise of social media and the 24 / 7 media could be another reason? If Obama was in office all would have been just fine though. We would hear stories of neighborly love and candy would be falling from the sky. Blah blah blah! I was triggered too.

machinist42

Power, internet, and cell were restored earlier today, Wednesday. I'd estimate at least half the area is still wanting these services; I really have no idea. I feel fortunate.



Cats, Gwendolyn and John, (Jack), are happy, fuzzy and fat, and no longer frightened by rainfall or thunderstorms.

Bikes are fine and entirely undamaged.

I am functioning within normal parameters.



We live on Trails End Road, I have the hats to prove it. I'm 500 feet from the water. There's a road sign outside my bedroom window which reads: "Road Ends 500 Feet". We are maybe a mile from where Flo made landfall, sideways distance. The eyewall lasted about two and a half hours. The weather station 150 meters from my location recorded 95 mph winds for two and a half hours, with gusts up to 135. Fun times! I live in what is called a "cottage" here, but FEMA calls a mobile home or trailer. We are almost 30 feet above sea level, at the crest of the largest hump around here. everything drains down. I have a couple of two hundred year old oaks flanking me, but only a few branches to put out for the pickup.

The eye arrived around 7 am and my first thought was which bike to take out for a ride. I went outside, as did everyone up and down the road who stayed. There was too much debris and too many downed power line and trees on the road for a respectable ride. Also, the eyewall was only at the end of the street, so there was that? It was moving at around 2 mph at that point. Trails End is a half a mile long road. The eye was over us for maybe four hours. Then, there followed four days of Flo.

I've been riding around. Monday evening was perfect. No cars. Well, few cars. One really effective traffic calming device is a tree teetering at an angle over a roadway.

Now, only a few grocers are open for very truncated hours, so the parking lots are full, with lines to enter. I was well provisioned but am running low on Tanzanian Peaberry, so went on a coffee quest. (I hand grind and cold brew in a French press, then decant a cup into a small copper clad Revere pan, then blast the bottom with a Mapp brazing torch for about a minute. It's my standard power outage technique.) Getting to and in the store is greatly facilitated by use of a bicycle, especially one which is C&V. No banks are open. All the ATMs are depleted of cash. No grocer gives cash back. Pretty much everything except Waffle House, a FEMA favorite, is closed. Yet life goes on. I've been through many of these, but though the damage is not as severe as others, the humans here are more shell shocked than I've ever witnessed. I've seen this look before: the glazed eyes, the spastic movements, the nervous speech patterns. Some folk are simply not suited to be in the sh*t? It'll be a few Carolina Blue days before life returns to anything approximating normal here. I suspect it's bad elsewhere. I don't know. I haven't watched the news or read the news or heard the news. I couldn't leave this street until Monday. My cell tower was down until today too.

One sign of healing; people are cutting the downed trees in their yards and piling them roadside, sometime in stacks that dwarf their home, like an enraged spouse putting their duplicitous partner's belongings curbside. It's part of the healing process, but I wish they would not put them in the scant few bike lanes we have. Almost ran into one tonight on Waltmoor, and I travel well lighted, even as I flaunt the mandatory curfew. Someone has to feed the feral cat colonies.

Thank you for your concern and interest! I really wanted to either ride a bike to the mostly intact dock and photograph it against the approaching eyewall, or attempt my 100 km on the Falcon for the Clunker Challenge in the eye. I feel such the disappointment for letting down the community. So it goes, or doesn't.

(My repaint (by the original owner, a professional race car/hotrod painter), "Salmon" or "Coral" (it's pink!), '74 Maserati MT-1 would have looked stunning against the grey trailing eyewall! <sigh emoji>)

p.s. Trader Joe's and Whole Foods still closed, I did find a sack of whole bean Hawaiian at Publix, on sale and with a coupon, on the bottom shelf hidden away. So, a successful day!

p.p.s. I only personally knew one guy who died, Sunday, so that's not too bad a toll? I may sound insensitive, but with the eyewall parked on us for so long, I was expecting a much higher body count.

machinist42

Jim's at Kerr and Park, and prone to flooding. I couldn't get to them today: Hugh McRae Park is still too flooded, not to mention closed because of debris, and nobody is open anyway. (I'm still trying to find a set of old Suntour BB retaining rings and cups for the sealed cartridge unit on my '84 Lotus Odyssey. I rummage through their takeoff trash. It might be the right bike to ride through this post apocalyptic landscape?)

I'll likely head by there Friday or Saturday, and report back with pictures. They may have power by then, and reopen.

Lazyass

I made it ok but we hàve a lot of destruction, it is worse than Matthew. Spent the last couple of days helping people pull out ruined furniture and hauling junk away. Rode my Univega Nuovo Sport around to survey damage because there is a lot of junk on the road ànd Pasela's are more durbale. Roads flooded, destroyed, bridges and railroad tracks out. Two people in town died and a HS kid is fighting for his life after a tree fell on him.

Deal4Fuji

Wow ! Glad you guys are OK. As bad as it was, we all dodged a bullet if it would have come in as a cat 4. As usual our hardest days are after the storm has passed, but they're still saying flood waters probably won't exceed Matthew. Strange how creeks and low areas many miles away from the river still back-up and water rises days after the rain has passed. My usual route had higher water last evening than Monday.
Monday

Wednesday

THURSDAY higher still, can't see around corner

SATURDAY AM Highest yet but I guess it crested sometime overnight, you can see from the water line it's finally on the way down.

Bueller, Bueller, Bueller.....