We moved to eastern North Carolina just 2 1/2 months ago and I am already experiencing my first hurricane. Hurricane Florence is heading right towards us and our county and all surrounded counties are under mandatory evacuation! My fiance had been through Hurricane Katrina back in the day and was extremely worried when we moved this close to the coast but I had assured her that hurricanes in NC are few and far between LoL, how wrong was I. Seems like my luck though, to have one the very first year we move here, I always say if it wasn't for bad luck I would have no luck at all haha.
More than a million people have been directed to evacuate already but we have decided to wait it out for many reasons, mostly because we feel we are pretty well prepared for something like this. We live about 30 miles off the coast and are pretty confident everything will be fine. Don't get me wrong we will get hit hard but we don't live in a flood zone so we only have to worry about the high winds and excessive rain, not the the surges.
We live in the country so we usually have enough food and water on hand to last us at least a few weeks to a month just to start. I have spent all week cleaning out drainage culverts up and down my street since we only have one neighbor and they already left without doing theirs so I have cleaned out more than a quarter mile. Luckily and unknowingly I have been cutting down old trees and over grown branches on my property for weeks now, so we shouldn't have any issues with debris hitting us so we just have to worry about power outages and water being turned off, but we are prepared for that too.
(We are in the purple area!)
People around here are really freaking out about this storm. I know being prepared is extremely important but this seems a bit over the top. Grocery store shelves are emptying as fast as they can fill them. Water, bread, canned foods and flashlights are pretty much non existent. I have never seen Home Depot so busy in my life! Everyone is buying plywood to cover windows, generators in case of power outages and gas cans. Every gas stations are 20+ miles of me are out of gas! It is the craziest thing ever. Good thing I already have all that stuff ;)
I know I have never been through a hurricane but I have been to war twice and I feel like that has taught me to be constantly prepared for anything, including a bad storm. Not only that, I use to be a "prepper" so I always make sure I can be self sufficient for at least a few weeks to a month before I would have to start worrying.
I wonder how many people would be screwed if there was no early warning system for a natural disaster? It is crazy to think that so many people are so unprepared for an emergency. Americans are way to complacent in life and that could one day bite us in the ass.
Anyhow, we are ready as we can be so wish us luck and watch my blog for updates throughout the the storm.
"Peace, Love and all that hippie shit"