Hurricane Matthew; hope everyone is safe

[edwardofhuncote]

Hope our folks down in the Southeastern U.S. are holed up somewhere safe and dry. 

Looks like we were spared the worst-case, but even up here in Virginia, we're just getting drenched with rain, after an already soggy couple weeks.

[David Houck]

First rain we've had here in a while, and not all that much.  Windy now, but pleasantly so.  The clouds have cleared out, and there's a beautiful first quarter moon out.

Looks like the hurricane is passing Wilmington now and getting ready to hit the Outer Banks before turning East and heading back out to sea.

Hoping everyone here in the club makes it through okay.

[keith_h]

We just got our power back after going out about 11AM yesterday which thankfully means we have running water again. I had thought about bringing out the generator but decided it wasn't worth getting soaked to get it from the shed to the front porch. We had a small pine tree, about 18 inches in diameter, come down just missing the front porch. Lots of leaves and limbs to clean up. As our soil is saturated I won't be surprised to see another tree or two to come down over the next few weeks.  The biggest disaster, and trust me it is,  is the wife's coffee pot was burnt out when the power glitched. At least this one isn't my fault like when I forgot her creamer on a camping trip.

[keith_h]

I talked with my daughter who lives outside of Fayetteville a short bit ago. I know we have a member or two down that way. She live just over the county line in Hoke County and said US 401 was closed due to flooding and the main road her subdivision is off of is closed on one end due to flooding undermining the roadway. There other way out via Plank Road on Fort Bragg was clear of flooding but last she knew was still closed due to downed trees and power lines. She also said her area is without water as the emergency generators that run the pumps have run out of fuel or in the areas where electrical has been restored they can't get to the pumps to reset them. She works in southwest Fayetteville proper and said her store didn't have power and there was still some road flooding.

[edwardofhuncote]

Aaiieeee! No coffee?!  (I'm with her, that's just unacceptable) 

I've spent the past couple nights at work babysitting my water plant. The wind that followed the rain is causing the trees up here to topple as well, aided by the 10 inches of rain we've had over the past week. The resulting power glitches and spikes are really bad for big electric motors that drive our pumps. Not only that, but the Crystal Spring, a large freshwater spring that is the source feeding my plant, isn't so 'crystaline' when we get that much rain, so some fairly drastic adjustments have to be made to the treatment process, often on the fly. 

We're really fortunate and thankful the rain stopped when it did... the Roanoke River runs right through town here, and it was right at flood stage. Coincidentally, last time it was this high was one year ago, almost to the day. The Hospital next door to my plant has a portable seawall type thing they put up to keep the hospital operable. We don't have that, but we do have good old-fashioned plywood and a stash of sandbags though. 

Glad to hear everyone's safe so far.