Hurricane Florence

[Gary W]

Sending heartfelt prayers to my Forum Brothers (and Sisters!) in the N.C. / S.C. area as this storm approaches.  PLEASE be safe!  

 

(Matt McHinson, you are in my thoughts, my friend)

[Morgan Wright]

Head for the hills. And pick me up some corn likker. 

[MCHinson]

Thanks. For the moment, we are staying here. If things change, we will get on the road to somewhere tomorrow. My house survived Hurricane Hazel in 1954 and the house addition and garage that I have added are also built with 2 x 6 framing rather than 2 x 4. 

 

Thursday-Sunday I was out of town attending my son's wedding in NJ. 

 

As some of you know, I had a 1938 Model 67 and most of a 1938 Model 41 disassembled and stored outside of my garage. I had made arrangements to sell all of that to Dave Tachney. He moved up his scheduled date to pick it up before the storm arrived. This morning, I finally had a chance to meet Dave in person. The only bad thing is we did not have as much time to visit as I hoped to have due to him needing to beat the traffic crunch of all of the people evacuating the islands.  We loaded it all up which took care of the majority of my outside storm preparation. I have a small number of other outdoor items to store in the garage tomorrow morning and then I am ready for the storm. There is one 1938 248 engine still outside the garage but I don't think I have to worry about it blowing away.  I think the photos explain it better than I can. 

[MCHinson]

One other thought that I should mention about how this hobby results in friendships all over the US (and other countries also)...

 

Today, I have received phone calls and emails from old car friends in Florida, Louisiana, New York, and New Jersey. If I need to leave, I have multiple folks who have offered us a place to stay. Louisiana might be nice this time of year, but I really don't want to drive that far.  

[Bill3747]

Stay safe, Matt.  If any doubt err on the side of safety and find a more secure location.  You're definitely in my thoughts and will be praying for all of you in the path of this storm.

Bill

[jscheib]

Seat safe, and easy travels.  Hope you return to pleasant results from the storm.

 

John

[MCHinson]

I am 7 miles from the ocean. I am 1 mile from the River. My property elevation is 14 feet above sea level. My house is on a 2 foot high foundation. The highest storm surge forecast is 13 feet. My house has survived storms with higher winds than those forecast for this storm at landfall. I have raised some stuff in the garage (such as the interior kit for my 1938 Buick project) off of the garage floor in case of some minor flooding here getting into the garage. We may lose electric power for a while. I have a generator and a bit of a gasoline supply if needed for an extended power outage. I think that I have enough food and water to survive until things return to normal if needed. For my 30 plus year law enforcement career, I had to work during every storm, so I have never evacuated for a hurricane. Since I am retired, I could leave if I wanted to do so, but I think I prefer to sit tight here than get caught in the traffic jams of the throng trying to drive out of the area. I have received a lot of nice phone calls from antique car hobby friends from all over the US. We expect to be fine. It will just be obnoxious to deal with the expected loss of internet, tv, and probably electric power. 

[39BuickEight]

Be safe!  

[MCHinson]

This storm keeps changing track and slowing down, so we are currently experiencing the outer bands. Looks like we will have about two days of rain and wind. I just took the dog out for a short walk and saw one of my neighbors sitting on his porch drinking beer and enjoying watching the wind and rain. 

 

The best quote I have heard about our situation is that "waiting for a hurricane is like being stalked by a turtle."  So far, we have only lost power once for about 30 seconds an hour or so ago.  As long as I have internet service, I can keep myself occupied and keep from being totally bored while being stuck inside for the next couple of days. We enjoyed some ice cream earlier and I baked some cookies so we don't have to worry about ice cream and cookie dough going bad if we lose power for an extended period of time. If we lose power, I guess it will be mostly peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for the duration. We also have plenty of unhealthy junk foods stockpiled just in case.   

[trimacar]

Matt, hope you weather the storm fine.

 

One piece of advice.  If you're out walking the dog on a leash, and your realize the dog is higher in the air than you are, you might consider going back inside.

 

I've sat out hurricanes and bad weather in Louisiana in the past.  I do understand your neighbor sitting on the porch, I've watched many a purple thunderstorm in Louisiana, getting wet, but marveling at the power and beauty of Mother Nature.

[MCHinson]

We are fine. No power since 4 am. The storm will still be bringing us rain and wind for another day or more since it is only moving at 3 mph. Talk to you later.

[Daves1940Buick56S]

Matt, are you still with us? Latest word was Cape Fear River at 23 feet, is that true?

 

Cheers, Dave

[MCHinson]

I am fine. The water was going down but we got a little bit more rain last night and early this morning.

 

We finally got electricity back a couple of hours ago. I still have a couple of inches of water in the low areas of my back yard so the garage floor still has a little bit of water on it. 

 

I have a little bit if damage but not much. I am a lot higher than some other areas of town. The river is flooding low lying areas but that doesn't effect me here. A lot of people are much worse off than I am. My worst problem is lack of home internet so my phone is the only internet access that I have.

[MCHinson]

The power was nice for a couple of hours but it died again. Hopefully it will be back soon.

[MCHinson]

We are fine. The electricity is back on again, hopefully for good. Still no internet service except for my phone, so I will still be offline until that gets fixed.

[trimacar]

Matthew, I'm glad to hear that you and family are OK...every time I hear Wilmington mentioned (which is a lot right now!) I think of you guys and wonder how you're getting along.....

 

And in response to your earlier post, what a decision, ride out the storm or go spend a week or so with Marty and Dale in Louisiana?  Tough decision, I know, but hmmmm......Marty can seem to find good cheesecake!

[Marty Roth]

Matt and family are welcome to join us, as are all others affected -

but we are in TWIN FALLS, IDAHO on the GLIDDEN TOUR

 

NO RAIN HERE !!

 

Best wishes and prayers for all who may be affected by Florence-

Having dealt with hurricane after Hurricane, after hurricane, ad infinitum, we appreciate the power of mother nature, and especially appreciate FIRST RESPONDERS

[MCHinson]

I am happy to report that I am back online via my computer. While without home internet, I used my phone camera to be able to post photos. When I get a chance, I will transfer the phone photos so that I can post them here more easily. Some of the following might not make much sense in this forum, but it is a simple copy and paste from my latest facebook post to cover the latest with the storm recover from my perspective.

 

This morning I picked up most of the limbs in the yard. I then mowed the lawn since it was the easiest way to pick up the leaves and other small debris.

I removed the anti fatigue mats from the garage to allow the garage floor to dry. I moved some other items outside of the garage, pulled two cars out, opened up the windows and used a fan to get the garage mostly dried out today.

 

We brought a friend without power over to get a hot shower, wash some laundry, and enjoy the air conditioning. We had a nice visit.

I took a trip over to Lowe's and Sam's Club. I got a few needed items from Lowe's and picked up some pasta, canned chicken, and a few snack items from Sam's Club since they have still not restocked any refrigerated or frozen meats. The trip across town showed a lot of old oak trees down and several places that you can't drive through due to washouts, down trees, down power lines and poles.

 

Using the supplies from Sam's Club, I was able to cook some Chicken Alfredo for dinner. It was a welcome change.

 

While walking Daisy after dinner, a couple of folks with a truck and trailer stopped me and asked if I needed anything, as they had brought in a pickup and trailer full of supplies to give away. I told them I was fine but suggested they might want to try the other side of Carolina Beach Road, since those neighbors still don't have electricity and are in worse shape than my neighborhood. I don't know if they were with a church it doing that as individuals. The truck was a business truck with a 704 area code on the door.

This will be my last post in a while from my phone, so I can post a few photos from today that are on my phone because, I can now switch to my regular camera because Spectrum actually got my home internet connection working a few minutes ago!

 

While I still have a couple of trees to remove from my side property line, I otherwise feel like life is basically back to normal for us. There are plenty of examples of bad things happening but luckily, there are also a lot of examples of friends and strangers helping their fellow man.