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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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.?
