We survived Hurricane Matthew: 10 '16

 Bruce channeling Jim Cantore

Well if you are reading this you must have figured out that we survived Hurricane Matthew.

Several people have asked us why we did not evacuate. The answer is that by time the state told us it was time for people in our area to leave,  the storm had diminished to the point that we did not feet posed  any serious threat to our person or our property.  We had already boarded up the house against flying debris, and garaged the cars above the predicted surge levels.  We had plenty of emergency equipment if we were stranded without power.  We also had lots of food, water, ice, propane and everything else we might need to hold out for a week

The biggest concern in our area was storm surge which was expected to raise a max of 6 to 9 feet in our area.  Georgetown County Emergency Management kept repeating that flooding levels would be similar to last October’s rainstorm flood levels.  Not that I doubted that there would be flooding problems  for people and properties along the rivers and the barrier islands, but we are sitting at 15 ‘ above sea level and did not see any flooding  on our street last October, so  we had no reason to worry about it  this time around.

As with all hurricanes, wind is the other big threat.  By the time it was our zone's turn to leave, max winds at the center of the eye were only 75 mph and gusts on the outer bands were significantly lower.  It would not be safe to be out walking or driving around in that kind of wind, but it was not going to blow the house down.

 BJ comforting Stinky

We brought both cats indoors throughout the duration of the storm.  Initially Stinky hid in a corner of the garage, but eventually he wanted to join us in the house.  Once in, he settled at our feet and purred louder than Ms Kat.  Once the storm was over we offered a couple of times to let him out. He stood at the door and looked out, but did not want to go outside until the wind had completely subsided.

CC texting a friend - the old fashion way

We did expect that we might lose power and connectivity with the outside world so we made sure we had stuff to keep us occupied. CC bought some extra writing paper so that she could write letters to friends, and holiday cards to the grand kids.

Bruce made sure we had extra batteries for our emergency radio so we could hear any weather alerts and listen to our favorite PBS radio stations after dark (e.g. 'Prairie Home Companion', 'Car Talk', etc.   We even listened to the 2^nd Presidential Debate on the radio (Personally, I now think that was our biggest mistake of the week.  Not only did we NOT learn anything new about either candidate’s plans, it left us both feeling very depressed that no one was talking about policy).  Beyond an hour or so of evening radio, there was no media bombardment at all.  No CNN or Fox news vilifying one candidate or the other, no distressing images of some distant global disaster, or violent TV programs showing chaos and mayhem.  The truth be told, we found that there is something emotionally elevating about being off the grid.