Today is the Thursday morning before Hurricane Matthew hits Charleston, SC. A crow is yelling right outside my window. This can't be a good sign.
Governor Nikki Haley announced this morning that 175,000 people have evacuated the Charleston, SC area so far. She estimated that 250,000 people needed to evacuate, so I'm not the only person staying here.
Hurricane Matthew is a CAT 3 hurricane right now down in the Bahamas. He won't arrive here to do his damage until Friday night at the earliest. The worst will happen Saturday. He has to hit Florida first. If he stays CAT 3, I will evacuate tomorrow morning. If he weakens to CAT 2 or a Tropical Storm, I will stay.
Evacuating with two very large (over 50 lbs each) dogs is not as simple as just leaving. I have friends and family who have offered me a place to stay in Upstate SC and NC, but my bringing two huge cat-eating house dogs with me is asking a lot of them. I won't go unless I fear for my life.
I will NOT leave my dogs.
Unfortunately my house is in the actual hurricane window near the coast. I'm only about 10 miles from the Atlantic as the crow flies or the hurricane blows...13 miles as the car drives. Saturday will be the bad day.
Speculation.
Everything is speculation.
A big part of my adult life has centered around data collection and reporting. The data has to be correct and set in stone. Black or white. No room for gray. Meteorology is totally gray. Nothing is guaranteed. Makes me crazy.
Still, even with the wishy washy weather predictions, later today I am going to run a lot of water up just in case. Fill up the bathtub. Fill up the washing machine. Fill up lots and lots of containers with lids. Better to not need it and have it than to need it and not have it.
My dogs drink a LOT of water and they will need clean water. I will need water for coffee and/or tea and the toilet if the water isn't running at all. I don't have a generator, but I do have a very nice camp stove/kerosene heater, so I can make coffee.
My nebulizer won't work with no electricity, so I'll have to rely on my regular inhaler. Hopefully that will be enough. It would be stupid of me to think my asthma won't raise its ugly head with the air pressure bucking like a rodeo bronco.
Yesterday I put all my porch plants and furniture into my garage. I took down my bird feeder outside my kitchen window too, much to the dismay of the worst of my squirrel bird feeder thieves. He climbed all the way up on my house and jumped down to my windowsill only to find the bird seed missing. Poor confused thing. Serves him right.
The birds knock plenty of seed down on the ground that the squirrels can eat. They don't have to take all the seed out of the feeder all the time. Ugh.
I will move my car to my neighbors' house tonight or tomorrow morning for the storm because the whole neighborhood will probably flood. Their driveway is on high ground and was okay during last year's 1000 year flood. The wind may still blow something into my car, but I'm more afraid of the flood. The flood water will be brine. Everything it touches will rust or rot.
I've been in the Charleston area since 1995 and have lived through a lot of really bad weather. Hurricanes. Tropical storms. Floods (lots and lots and lots of floods).
I can not wait to retire and move to the mountains! So many reasons to look forward to retirement. I have never been a beach person.
I'm going to bathe the dogs today, and cook some good food so I won't have to worry about food for a couple of days or more.
There have been strangers walking through the neighborhood this morning. I've never seen them before. They've been coming in twos and small groups as well as alone. Probably looters checking to see who left.
Looters are the scum of the earth. There has to be a special place in Hell for looters.
I have lights on and my blinds open so I can stare at them as they pass. Some are talking into their cell phones as they look back and forth at the houses. Pond scum.
A bird just flew into my picture window and knocked itself silly. Now it has climbed up my screen looking in my window at me. Looked like a female cardinal. That can't be a good sign. It just flew away.
A man is singing, "I got angels on my side," on the television. Maybe that is a good sign?
-sigh-
I'm as ready for the storm as I can get, I guess.
Now. I wait.
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