Hurricane Florence

Thinking of our friends in the Carolina's as this bear down upon them. Please stay safe!!!

Georgia...if you can, let us know that you are ok.

I was wondering about Georgia also. Please stay safe, all in Florence's path. Make preparations and if necessary, get out NOW.

Thanks for thinking of us. We're pretty much right in the path, as it's projected now. We're as prepared as we can be. Going out for a nice dinner now before we have to shelter in place, lol.

Come stay with us if you need!!

After watching several hours of hurricane coverage all I can say is, Get Out Now. This will be a major flooding event.

Take care and stay safe. Let us know how you are, when you can.

40" of rains and crazy wind is not going to be fun.

Emergency radio with hand crank to charge and also charge your phones?

Water for flushing toilets!!

Wine!

My daughter is saying good by to her home on Topsail Island. As of now, she is right over the "eye".

Hopefully things work out for her, and she has battened down the hatches and left it as best she can.....

"Left" is the operative word. Things can be replaced. Stay safe, people!

Leona, we have a whole house generator; put that in after we were without power for a week following Matthew. The turn to the south is good news for us; not so much for friends in the Myrtle Beach area.

No offense intended, but a generator does not keep flood waters out or the roof on. Evacuate now. Better safe then sorry.

Thoughts are with you. We have close SXM friends that have a home in Kitson and another SXM friend with a home in Charleston and they are staying also. Prayers are for you all.

dolfer, I don't believe that you realize Georgia is inland.

Some inland areas are predicted to get up to 40" of rain, that can cause some serious damage.

You can watch the storm approach from the pier cam at Bogue Inlet:

http://www.ebmcdn.net/webcast/flash/bogue-inlet/live-iframe.html

Seems to be off. All webcams on Surfchex and Larry's vacation cams are down. I wanted to keep my on Topsail island while I could. Nuts!

Still working for me!

Also a cam here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=deG4NxkouGM

careful....I had earbuds on and the hurricane is LOUD!
Poor flag has ripped.

Awesome video! Thanks for the link.

Well this one is for the record books for all the unusual stuff so far. We're in central NC and it looks like our wind speed will be around 30 mph and not too much rain. My sister-in-law lives in Wilmington, and she is staying with us until Monday.

You're welcome.

That poor flag isn't going to make it. Even more shredded now.

Thank you!!

I wonder what MPH the wind is there now. Hard to tell. I figure it won't be visible for much longer because it is getting dark.

As it is still 100 miles from land, and only moving at 5mph....it's going to take 20 hours! News just said it would not reach land until later tomorrow....

Well, the pier came seems to have gone down.

Tattered flag still hanging in there on the other cam near Cape Fear.
Interesting facts about where that cam is located:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frying_Pan_Shoals

"rustic" B&B? lol....I'll say!

Well it’s here, and boy is it blowing, thank the lord it’s just wind and not rain!

SXMFOX, How are the oceanfront homes in North Topsail holding? Very curious, My daughter has a home there and has not heard a thing. Thanks for any Info.

JoAnn,

Sincerely hoping you’ve actually heard from your daughter regarding the Topsail house by now. Sometimes the ‘not knowing’ is actually worse than the reality. And this is like deja-but, no?

Good luck and I hope your daughter was spared.........

Thanks for the good wishes Pat. No she has not heard and no one is allowed on Topsail Island at this time. Brings back our memories of the B-tch Sandy when we could not get to see our home after 2 weeks. She is not as "crazy" as her mother, she can handle things a lot better than I can. Must be the age LOL

Thanks again Pat for your concern.

I think this is going to be a big one. We have friends near Cherry Point and they say rain/flooding/wind are immense.

Anyone in the Carolinas, please check in, when you can!

So far we still have our electricity. The rain keeps coming down. Certainly if you watch TV, you will see tons of bad stuff on the coast. My sister-in-law lives in Wilmington and is staying with us for now, so we are closely following the developments. Not sure when she can go back home.

OK, take care and stay safe! Thanks for checking in.

I am having a hard time seeing all the snakes that are floating in the roads!! Good grief !

Hi. Any updates from you folks in the Carolinas? Anyone heard from Georgia?

Yesterday Georgia was doing well. Having drinks! I believe that today she was going to attempt to drive out and check property on the coast....

She told me that I could share what she said yesterday:

" Still no power, but the generator makes that a non-issue, at least until we run out of propane. We just took a drive to see where the wires are down, and there are three different places, the farthest about 15 miles from our house. The road is blocked there, so we couldn't go any further.
The propane will last around another two weeks. The truck will come out to refill it as long as they can get to us. The problem will be the flooding of the Neuse River will close the road between us and the propane company. We're running a/c, set on 82 to conserve propane. My only internet access out here us via cell service, and it's been very spotty today. Please share my status on ttol. We're fine, and in no danger at All. Thanks to you and the others for their concern."

Monday update:
From Emerald Isle
"At the beach house. We are so fortunate! The house is almost unscathed, just one piece of fascia trim blown off. A couple of trees down or damaged. The pier is mostly still here; we did lose the landing end, and the runners off the lift."

Hi. Thanks very much for posting.

In somewhat unreal news, my sister-in-law drove back to Wilmington today. Took her 6 hours to do a 3 hour trip. The really amazing thing is that she has electricity at her home. Unreal, but of course very happy about that.

Glad she got home and had electric...

Hi all. Sorry I've been remiss in posting, but our only internet access here in the boonies is via cell phone tower, and apparently we lost the one closest to our home. I'be been able to access Facebook, although it's been very slow. We've picked up a different tower today, and our service is much improved. Thank you Beach Kitten, for sharing my updates. We're fine here, but within five miles things are much different. There's a lot of flooding nearby, and more to come. New Bern, the town where we go to grocery shop and enjoy lunches and dinners out, is devastated. I'm sure you've seen the pictures on the news. Our power came on last evening; many are still without power and will be for quite some time. The damage we saw on the way to the beach house was unreal. Our next door neighbor there probably lost his house; it's on pilings and they are twisted. He had only bought the house a few months ago, and put in a new pier. It is completely gone. Again, we were lucky; only a little damage to the fascia of the house. Our pier is mostly intact, although we did lose probably the last 30 feet (it's 785 feet total), and the landing on the end. The boat lift is damaged, but can be repaired. The power is still off down there.

We are the fortunate ones; many have lost everything.

Thanks to everyone who asked about us.

Thanks for checking in. Definitely sounds like you have been lucky..

Hey everyone, been a little busy here! All is good with a little damage, mostly shingles. We weathered the storm fairly good all things considered. As was stated before, some people lost everything. Just got out onto North Topsail Beach the other day and everything looks really good with the homes. Now every ocean front home lost their stairs and some walkways, and the dunes are COMPLETELY gone. But all in all things look good! I check back in later, heading to the beach again.

Great! Sounds good, all things considering! Thanks for checking in..

Anytime Carol, anyone who needs more info can go to YouTube, under search, type in North Topsail Beach, and there is a video from Onslow County, the first one(45min long). It starts from the county line and goes north, very informative for folks that want to see the damage. Just passing it a long.

Be careful where you swim. NASA had photos of the polluted water running into the ocean from the flooded rivers. Surfchex webcam showed brown waves into the shoreline. My daughter was there this past weekend and said the water was filthy.

Warnings have been posted in that regard.