The waiting is the most stressful part. With the arrival of Hurricane Florence tomorrow, the southern half of the North Carolina coast will likely experience winds, or at least gusts (rafales), of more than 100 mph (160 kph, maybe 200 kph).
The distance from Norfolk (Virginia) to Myrtle Beach (South Carolina) is more than 300 miles (500 km). My home town, Morehead City, is about half way between the two. The body of water just north of Morehead, enclosed by barrier islands called "the Outer Banks," is Pamlico Sound, which is an enormous estuary in the form of a shallow lagoon. The N.C. sounds stretch over more than 3,000 square miles (nearly 8,000 km²). For comparison, France's Loir-et-Cher département where we live has a surface area of 6,300 km².
The biggest danger now is the storm surge, I believe. Carteret County, in which Morehead City is the largest town, has a total area of 1,341 square miles (3,470 km²), of which 506 square miles (1,310 km²) is land and 834 square miles (2,160 km²) — 62% — is water. Some of my ancestors came to live here more than 300 years ago.
What else can we do but keep our fingers crossed Florence will not be as bad as predicted.
ReplyDeleteWe soon shall know.
The worrisome part is the forecast for the storm to stall just off the coast or a short way inland. That might mean the rain fall will be antediluvian.
DeleteFingers crossed for your family. I should think the large lagoon would be helpful in protecting that area from extreme seas and perhaps quickly draining rain water.
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure if the Sound makes much difference. If wind blows hard from the northeast, water is pushed up into the Sound and the part of N.C. that they call "the inner coast" gets flooded anyway. That can include my town. Wind-driven water plus heavy rain = disaster.
DeleteI saw on the television news that people were packing up their furniture into removal vans and evacuating. It's obviously being taken seriously. Good luck to your family and friends. I hope they stay safe and don't have too much of a mess to clean up afterwards.
ReplyDeleteThanks Susan. My sister and our cousin felt the call of duty to stay there. The food "mission" where they are key volunteers is on very low ground, 200 feet or so from the water, and it may well be flooded by the storm.
DeleteI'll be anxious for updates about your sister and cousin, Ken... even though I imagine there won't be reliable communication.
ReplyDeleteFrom what I've seen, you may get rain out of Florence as far west as St. Louis.
DeleteLet's hope and pray for your family members and all the folks in the affected areas. Hopefully, it won't be as bad as predicted, but precautions are important.
ReplyDeleteDR
The five-day track from NOAA on this thing is wild, it looks like a hockey stick. The body of the storm goes inland a bit, rains on Charlotte and Asheville, then hangs a right and heads up to New York and New England.
ReplyDeleteAt 11 pm Eastern, it seems to be coming ashore in Wilmington, down to a Cat One, wind down a bit and the barometer up a notch. Fingers crossed.
The state seems to have done a good job getting all the tourists, or most of them, out of there, leaving essential people like your sister and the first responders. I'm hoping it will move along smartly and not stall out. More fingers crossed.