Whitney's Whirligig World: October 2016

Part 1 – The Preparing Half

I have survived wind storms, blizzards, flash floods, monsoons, lighting storms and now I am going to take on my first hurricane. Hurricane Matthew is on the way.

The first thing I learned about hurricanes is listen to the radio. This is where I heard a lot of the announcements. "South Carolina is declared in a state of emergency" the radio announced said on the channel. He went on to talk about schools being closed, activity cancellation, event cancellation and an evacuation to begin in two days. They went on to talk about interstates being closed east bond starting at 3pm because all lanes would be west bond only. Every coastal town along the Atlantic is to be evacuated.

This meant every hotel and motel was sold out. Schools and any other major building were to be set up as shelters until the hurricane had passed. For most South Carolina folks, this was neither the first nor the last evacuation for them. A lot of people have friends or family who lived farther enough in land who would take them in. Some people hitched up trailer, RV and motorhomes and headed west. Some people jumped on city buses which were provided per the governor to ship people inland.

Photo from Grand Forks Herald

The second thing I learned about hurricanes is the warning and evacuation set up is quite amazing. There was 5 days’ worth of warnings, updates and set up. Most of mother nature's disasters don't come with a week long preparation period. With tornados one is lucky to have 15 minutes. With blizzards one usually wakes up to find they were snowed in overnight. So this days-of-preparations was quite nice actually but it also left a lot of time for people to panic.

The third thing I learned about hurricanes is panicked people are stupid. The grocery stores were insane. People were buying everything. Fighting over water bottles, canned foods, batteries and most of the shelves were bare. It was Hollywood movie worthy. The overcrowded gas stations were the next crazy spot as well then the backed up traffic for 60 miles.

Fourth, there were warnings of no power and no cell phone reception for who knows how many days. I thought the locals were going to loose it. Maybe it's because I'm from Idaho and we have power outages at least twice a year. But people here were panicked about it. One person pointed out if the electricity goes out then the security systems won't work. Not only did we just announce to the whole world that all the major cities on the coast are going to be abandoned but now all the security systems are down. Apparently looting is as much of a concern as the hurricane. Another person pointed out, if the power goes out then the wells don't work and there is no water. Thus the water bottle fights at Wal-Mart

The fifth and craziest part, if a person doesn't evacuate and decides to stay in their homes, if they call 911, no one is going to come. First responder teams are set up but an evacuation is an evacuation and first responders are evacuating as well. Officials were taking names and social security number from the people who were refusing to leave. There was a surprising number of people staying behind.

I work in an ER in a town where a lot of people were evacuating too so we had to prepare as well. The hospitals on the coast were evacuating people and we received several of them. Plus, we had to set up an Alpha on call team and a Beta on call teams to come in if things here in the ER get crazy. The generators were tested and we were preparing to also not have electricity or running water and flooding in this area is a big concern.

I live in a 25-foot travel trailer so there are some pros and cons to this. The not so good part, my house is a box. It wouldn't stand a chance against 130-mile an hour winds, flooding and debris. The good part is, I simple hitched up and drove 126 miles away from the coast. I have 60 gallons of water with battery and propane operated everything. I have been texting family to let them know I'm prepared but won’t reachable by phone for the rest of the weekend. I also moved my horse inland to stay with a fellow rider on her property until this all is over with. So bring on the hurricane. I'm as ready as I'm ever going to be.

Part 2 – The Surviving Half

So that was spooky. I had never experienced anything like it. First a little rain, then a lot of rain, then the wind started, followed by flooding which finished up with no cell service and a power outage. This all started Friday afternoon and ended late Saturday night. The power didn’t come back on until Tuesday, 5 days total. The wind reached 40 mph. It flooded 6 inches everywhere and I mean no spot of earth wasn’t under water. All this was just what I personally experienced and I was 126 miles from the coast. Everyone closer had it much worse. Trees up rooted and landing on houses and across roads. Rivers washing out roads and flooding bridges. Flood up to 3 feet in some places. 120 mph winds. Debris damaging houses and other property. Power outages which started Friday afternoon and still haven't turned back on (it's Wednesday morning) because the power poles are cracked in half and the power lines are laying in pieces all over the roads.. All this and Hurricane Matthew was only a class 2 here.

Photo from ABC News

It was a little crazy how unprepared some people were, even with a week worth of notice. I also was surprised at how some people either didn't know how to prepare or didn't care too. Things like buying enough food for several days, buying nonperishable food, flashlights and batteries, how to cook with no electricity, bottled water supplies and so on.

At the hospital, people were "dumping" their elderly parents in the ER. People were showing up complaining of sore throats or extremity injuries when really all they wanted was food because they didn’t have any. Some people were trying to check themselves into the hospital just so they could charge phones, laptops and not have to stay in the dark.

The first responders had their hands full. Transporting patients from the evacuated hospitals all over the state, trying to answer 911 called, pulling extra shifts at the hospitals, ambulances doing overtime to help out, pulling vehicles from rivers, trying to contain flooding, trying to clean up fallen trees and other debris. A huge ongoing problem still to this day (6 days later) is trying to put the power lines back together so people can get their electricity back on.

Photo from Island Packet

I heard on the news over 900 people in Haiti died while 20 people in South Carolina died. I didn't get any numbers from Florida or Georgia.

This really was an interesting experience and I luckily really didn't have any personal problems. But I also prepared for it on many levels and that preparation paid off.

I can now add “survived a hurricane” to my list of mother nature battles. Wonder what I will get to take on next.?