Hurricane Michael Check In

[catcul]

Has anyone else been affected by Hurricane Michael?

I know it wrecked a few areas. Thankfully, the worst thing that happened to me was losing power for a few hours.

[Tama]

Here in Northern Virginia it rained and rained HARD. The wife had to come out and pick me up from work because no cabs were running, and said it was like driving a boat to get up to me. Could barely see the road for the water kind of raining. The smaller drainage ditches were overflowing.

We ended up sitting at the McDonalds in the same shopping center for 2 hours until it let up a little. Still rained for hours more, but it wasn't as bad coming back as it was for her going out.

[Ironclad Alibi]

I'm in Northern Virginia also, and doing fine.

My brother is in Tallahassee, and my sister south of him, closer to the coast. I spoke with him today. Most of the areas are with electricity and phones, although cell service works. He had a lot of limbs down, and a railing knocked off his deck. He's busy cleaning up everything.

We going down in two weeks for a wedding (my nephew) so I hope everything gets tidied up by then and the wedding doesn't get delayed.

[Jay 2K Winger]

Also Northern Virginia. Yup. Rain. Rain and some wind. But mostly rain.

We're all fine.

[HotelMinion]

Yeah lots of rain and wind. I had completely forgot about the hurricane and thought it was just a thunderstorm so I went out in my flip flops to return something. Then I noticed the rain blowing sideways. Everyone was staring at me and pointing. There was a big puddle I had to step in and dirty water got on my feet. Ew. Yuck. LOL The only good thing was that not much people were outside.

[DGoddessChardonnay]

We survived Michael fine, other than our lights flickering a time or two at home Thursday evening. NO damage to the house (thank God - we went through enough of that back in April when the tornado came through.)


Although we had power, we lost our cable and internet for 2 days - it was finally restored late Saturday afternoon.



Parts of Greensboro were without power for awhile . . . I clocked out Thursday around 3, and that's when the worst of the storm was taking place (naturally.) Wind, rain blowing the water across the parking lot so fast and so hard that people were almost getting knocked down outside.



One lady practically was blown in through the automatic doors . . . along with a broken umbrella! I think she was a dropout from the Mary Poppins School of Flight.


It was all I could do to keep from laughing as she was showing the other two ladies she was with (who had made it inside before her) her broken umbrella. . . . and another customer with a small daughter turned around and came back in because the daughter had forgotten her umbrella (apparently she left it in the ladies' room.)


It was almost 4:20 when Mom finally made it . . . the storm had let up quite a bit although no sooner had we left the parking lot and made it onto Church Street the traffic was horrible . . . and slow.


Twenty minutes just to get through the stoplight at Cone Boulevard . . . Police had a section of Cone closed off due to flooding. We were in a middle lane waiting to go straight, but had to swerve to avoid rushing water that was gushing out from the parking lot on our right at the corner (a closed facility that was once part of the mighty Cone Mills - the land is so low that when it normally rains it turns into a small pond.) Add to that the traffic lights were out, so it was an excruciatingly long wait just to cross.


Once we got to the light at Sixteenth, where we turned left to cross the bridge, it wasn't bad. The traffic let up somewhat. Then we exited onto Summit Avenue and as soon as we got to the top of the hill to take the light at Phillips Avenue (at the bridge that crosses over Highway 29) the traffic light was out, so Mom decided let's go down Summit (she wanted to stop at McD's for an ice cream cone) so we cruised down and saw trees down and as we approached the fast food places, everything was dark. Burger King, Taco Bell, the convenience stores and Mickey D's all dark. No power at all. Even the traffic light at Bessemer Avenue was out - both shopping centers (which are located across the road from each other) were dark. We didn't run into lights again until about five blocks before we reached our road.


Friday after work was the same - same stretch of town still in the dark (I think they got power back around Saturday) but going to work before daybreak and one entire side of Phillips Avenue was pitch black, the other side had lights on in spots. Very strange how the power grids are set up in our town.


We were busier than usual on Friday . . . but then three other of our stores nearby had lost power, so our sales were probably a little bit more than expected.


Sunday Mom and I went out to the nearby Litter Box to get some more drinks stocked up (79 cents for 2 liter Pepsi on a 3 day ad, we have to keep those stocked at the house) and they were trying to recover from the power outage, but a lot of items in the produce department, for example, were out. So much for getting a bag of grapes or some pineapple chunks.


I just hope we're not getting any more severe weather for a long while . . .