About two and a half weeks ago, my captain became serious about tracking Hurricane Florence when she was miles from the eastern coast. He was seriously checking out the European and US tracking models and told me that he hoped the European module was going to be wrong, but turns out it was pretty close to spot on.
As the storm approached our coast, everyone was in Eastern NC was in full hurricane prep mode days before landfall. For us, we made sure the storm windows were in place, all lawn furniture put away, and filled our tub with fresh water. The captain made sure SunDaze was as secure as he could get her, tucked away in Pungo Creek.
Hurricane Florence showed us her fury on Friday, September 14th. I stayed awake that Thursday night prior as I was anxious about the possibility of our home flooding. While the captain slept peacefully, I was watching TV from 1:30am until light to see any and all TV updates on the storm.
As morning light approached, I watched the Pamlico River rising in our back yard.
I took a picture of our back yard a week before the storm...this is what it looked like then...
On Thursday afternoon, the winds pushed the Pamlico River in towards land.
This shows the progression of water on Thursday.
Early Friday am, this is the picture I took...
I have a string of LED lights around the trunk of a small tree in the back yard. This picture was taken from our kitchen window and it is early am. The picture has not been altered in any way. Hard to get a good fix on how high the water was getting, but can you see the lights? Looks like our guardian angel watching over us!
You can barely see the railroad tracks in the back.
The highest point was to the bottom of our barn, but stayed away from our house. It was a nerve-wrecking day, as we watched the water come closer and closer.
Saturday the water dropped about 3 feet. Yay!
Then Sunday... a bit more.
This was yesterday.
Then today...
The river is still a little high, and some of our town suffered a lot more flooding and are in clean up mode. Our neighbors further south on the Crystal Coast were hit really hard. And we are hearing of massive flooding inland due to rainfall still from the storm remnants. The stories and pictures shown on TV and social media is heartbreaking. As of last count, that I am aware of, the total death count is 35.
I feel blessed and so very thankful that we were spared of damage and that we were safely tucked in our home, and came out of this unscathed. We will continue to pray for those that dealing with the aftermath and hope that the road to recovery for them is swift.
Until next time...
Please ENJOY each day!
