Anyone in the path of Hurricane Helene?

Bout 15 miles inland from Charleston SC.

I forgot to take my mother’s hanging plants down. I have to do that again…
I’ll have to move a bunch of potted plants inside the porch too.

I’m fairly certain this will flood the coastal areas. I doubt we flood where I am, this time.
There were more tornadoes than usual, last storm. Fucking Arby’s is still closed…

They day this one should have more too. Otherwise, I expect rain bands, and gusts. Shouldn’t be too bad.

This is how my third flood happened. The storm came from inland and swung around and that sucked the ocean in, just from the storm being close to the ocean.

Am I in the path?
Only if someone changes the maps prediction with a sharpie.

Yep, supposed to come right over Atlanta or a titch to the east of town. We’re right in the path. The hope is that by the time it hits North Georgia, the winds will have died down a little.

We are on the fringe. We’ll get some rain and probably a little wind. Nothing truly threatening. Thank goodness I got my yard mowed yesterday!

Looks like we’ll get a rainy weekend out of it which is much needed.

@elbanditoroso Rain and flooding is probably GA’s biggest concern.

It’s pouring here today and will rain again tomorrow, but I know this is not Helene (yet).

The storm surge, will be the worst of it. Obviously it will be the worst on the northeast side of the storm.

It’s wild how these storms come, and go. But we only know for sure where it goes after it’s gone. That’s saved me, and screwed me in the past many times. The ol’ last second shimmy, those storms take…

They used to only give hurricanes female names, and only a few decades ago started using male names.

The public opinion, here, is that the storms were named after women, because of their unpredictable nature. Well. The public opinions of some older people here…
True or not, that always amused me.

Technically yes, though it has already passed. It hit Quintana Roo harder and it was mostly just rain where I am.

After a lifetime of living in an area with no real weather, the Atlantic Hurricane Season is now something I pay close attention to. We’ve had several pass through here this year.

@JLeslie 54 alerts in my county – winds, severe storms, flooding… and so on.

@elbanditoroso 54 in one county? How do you get these alerts? I’m not even sure what that means.

sorry that was supposed to 4 (four)

Flood Watch until September 27, 02:00 PM EDT
Hazardous Weather Outlook
Tropical Storm Warning
Hurricane Local Statement

Oh. Ha! That makes more sense.

2 out of 5 chance of isolated tornadoes tomorrow (Friday 9/27). Up to 3 inches of rain forcasted.

Starting to get breezy here with some stronger gusts. Still fine to go outside to give you an idea of what it’s like.

I’m following this Q since I have a sister that lives near Augusta, GA. I’m guessing lots of rain for her?

@jonsblond not much if any. Augusta is too far east. The path of the storm is straight north through Atlanta and then curving to Nashville

Tropical storm force here for the last hour. Heard something banging around outside for a minute or two. It sounded like it was in or on my neighbor’s house.

Worried about the people about to go through the eye wall. Cat 4!

I just heard someone was killed by a sign falling in Tampa.

@Demosthenes

“It hit Quintana Roo harder and it was mostly just rain where I am.”

How far were or are you from the Chick’s Lube (Crashed Cretaceous) crater? ;=)

@jonsblond Yes, your sister will likely have tropical storm conditions. There will be wind and rain, probably limbs coming down out of trees, some power outages (if you have above ground wires), etc. I live over by Wilmington NC and already have the wind and the clouds, though I am too far east to get even the tropical storm conditions.

It rained all night fairly heavily but we never lost power. Now the storm has moved off and Atlanta seems to have gotten through it reasonably well

I just read that Augusta University lost 90% of their trees.

Did you see Asheville, NC? It was already having flooding problems and now it is just unbelievable. This morning I wanted to see what happened where the hurricane made landfall in Florida, and what the areas near there looked like, including Tallahassee, but there was nothing on the news about it when I tuned in, and I have been busy for hours now with work and had to drive somewhere. Hoping to watch some TV in a few hours.

Rain total for 2 hours 45 minutes was 2.5 inches. Tornado hit 25 miles North.

Lordy yes. I’m on the Gulf in SW Florida. We are fine; the house is fine; my car is gone.

I was out several times during the night, as I heard my canoe trying to take off against the side of the house.
I should have just sat it right side up, so it would have filled with water to keep it down…
It’s no worse for the wear though.
Lots of debris. Much more than the last storm.
This was FAR from my first hurricane. This was nothing, for us here in Charleston SC.
Hey yall!

It looks like it did what they do ,elsewhere. I can’t imagine living in Florida. I’m not afraid of these storms, even the big ones, bit I hate the constant clean up, and damage they cause. They can put an area out of work for weeks or months too, as businesses repair.

Sorry about your car @SnipSnip .

This is from my sister. She’s in Graniteville, SC, just north of Augusta. “HEY, sis, thanks for checking on me. It’s hell down here. There is no damage to my house except a few shingles, but I have no power, cell phone, or internet service.
We will be without for weeks I imagine. It’s like a 5 mile wide tornado ripped through here, anything over 40 ft tall isn’t standing.trees are still falling due to all the rain as well. It’s a little scary, fights at stores that are open. I have all I need and wonderful neighbors so I feel safe.“

I heard SC had more power outages than FL.

@SnipSnip That sucks that your car is gone. My husband would be traumatized if that happened.

@jonsblond thank goodness she’s safe. If she is near a commercial area they will get her power on within a few days probably. I hope so.

@MrGrimm888 Inland we don’t usually have much clean up in Central and South FL since we don’t have a lot of trees, or not a lot of trees like more north.

Just checked in with friends in Dunedin, FL and they say not too bad there.

The hard part about trying to guess at who will and won’t get hit and how hard is that these hurricanes are deceptive. The actual part that has the hurricane force winds is the center they track. But the impact can be felt for 100 miles on either side of that eye. I’m about 200 miles (as the crow flies) from Atlanta. We got some rain and wind, though not a tremendous about of either.

I have relatives in Pisgah Forest NC, which is up in the mountains, and I am not sure if they got a lot of flooding but I read that Asheville NC, which is not too far from Pisgah Forest, did. Also Boone NC did, as well. Boone is over west near TN.

I contacted a friend who is originally from Boone and her daughter is in college somewhere in the mountains. It’s bad. A facebook friend who I don’t know well was in Asheville and it took her hours to get out with road closures and she was so tired partway home to FL she want to get a hotel but couldn’t find vacancies easily. Miserable.

@JLeslie I saw a photo of Boone on FB and the water was almost to the tops of the cars.

It’s crazy, because we NEVER know precisely where the storms will go, OR what the effects will be, until the storm has passed.

Wulf. I was watching my neighbors flags flying the day the storm was coming. We were getting strong wind, from the East before dark.
The “rain bands,” can stretch hundreds of miles from the eye.

The worst part, is when you live on the coast, and you aren’t sure which side of the eye wall you’ll be on. Being on the northeast of the wall, is the where the buzz saw-like storms are the worst.
That’s your primary storm surge area, as well. In a storm like this one, that can be over 20 feet…
As I’ve said before, it’s not 20 feet of still water. The surface is a Hellscape of large waves, wind, and occasionally the water will rush, creating amazingly powerful currents.

Some people say “my house is 30 ft tall, I’ll just go upstairs.”
Well. A 20 ft storm surge, can easily pull a house off it’s foundation…

They suck. They’re a pain in the ass, of millions of Americans on the East Coast, and in The Gulf.

I wish we could design something, that would destroy the storm at sea…

NY Times had an article by someone who said it gets tiring because every time a big storm is coming, which may be several times a year, it’s a lot of work to evacuate, figure out where to go to stay, plus it costs money and not everyone has it. Plus, the author wrote, sometimes you can evacuate and then the storm passed by the town you live in, so you evacuated, spent the time, energy and money for nothing. Also, I’m thinking if you have a job and you evacuate, and you’re hundreds of miles away, the job may not be so sympathetic, especially if the storm wasn’t that bad where you live.

@jca2 We evacuated during Florence. We weren’t going to as it was only supposed to be a Cat 1 storm. But they suddenly changed it and said it would be a Cat 4 or 5. So we left. I had set it up with my cousin in Atlanta to let us come and stay. When we got there we found it had been downgraded to a Cat 1. But by then it was too late to go back home. She (Florence) did something these storms rarely do: she came and sat on Wilmington NC, just picking up water from the ocean and dumping it on the land, for a couple days. My neighborhood took no real damage. We kept in touch with some people that stayed and they said that at the worst there was an inch or two of water on the road. But areas around us got flooded to the second story windows of the homes.

We were safe in Atlanta, but couldn’t get back. Physically, we couldn’t get back. Roads were flooded, trees were down across them, etc. We ended up staying in Atlanta for 10 days. I spent hours looking for a way for us to get back home. At one point we decided we could drive up to Winston-Salem, over to Raleigh, and back down to home. We planned on leaving the next day but then a road we were going to use, one of the only ones at that location we could use, washed out. However I looked at tide charts and realized we could likely scoot through South Carolina on a much more direct path because the flooding would be going down as we got there.

What that author said was correct. It is tiring. You have a head full of unknowns that you have to deal with: is it better to evacuate or ride it out? If you evacuate, where would you go? How and when could you come back? Can you afford it? If you stay, what can you do to make your home safer? Even the part about the jobs is true. I worked at the nuclear plant near Wilmington. Even after I got back home, the roads to the plant were blocked for days. The company told us we had to use our vacation if we wanted to get paid, even though we couldn’t physically get to work. They kept a skeleton crew of people to maintain the plant for the storm and they had to helicopter in food and water for them to survive a few days until they could get relief there. But if you worked there and didn’t have enough vacation, you’d be punished by not getting paid when you couldn’t get to work. It is all a mess.

Evacuations are almost always only by bodies of water, and instructions are to stay in county or one county over. Evacuation along the shore will be everyone within a ¼ mile, or a mile, etc. It’s not usually more than a couple of miles. Islands are often completely evacuated. They don’t want people driving far because it creates heavy traffic, people get stuck on the road for hours and there is a risk of accidents on the road. Evacuation is primarily about flooding not the wind, except in the case of mobile homes and the homeless.

The state of Florida suspends all tolls if it’s applicable. Uber offers free rides, I think possibly Florida pays them. Probably other states do the same. Police and other county officials go through evacuation areas trying to make sure people get out and help them if they need it. Hospitals let people sleep in the halls if a person is very pregnant or has very precarious health.

Shelters are set up for people who have nowhere else, and every county in Florida must have a shelter that takes pets.

Even with all of that planning and organization, it is annoying to deal with it, especially if it is more than once in a year. Usually, there are years in a row without any hurricane right where you live, so there is years with a break.

I remember after one of the hurricanes about 12 years ago, we had no power here and a friend who owns a time share (it’s a time share that goes by points and not specific times) let us stay at her time share. We were away from home for 8 nights, total. I remember the dread I had calling my boss every night, saying I wasn’t coming to work tomorrow. One of the week days was Election Day, so I didn’t have to charge a day for that, but I think I charged 5 days of vacation, sick or personal time. Still, my boss was not happy and luckily I was friends with her but still, she was a boss first and so not happy. I was grateful to have the friend’s time share and my parents joined us, because they had no power either. That’s what sucked, that I couldn’t even go stay at my parents’ because they had no power either. The day time temps were around mid 50s and the night time were in the 30s and 40s, so I definitely would have struggled if I stayed home. My boss said I could sleep at her house, but I would have had an hour drive to get my daughter to kindergarten and then an hour drive from there to work.

One of the other hurricanes, I think it was Sandy, we had no power for a few nights and my mom got a room where she and I stayed, and my daughter, at a Doubletree. When I made reservations, they charged us the rack rate which was 250 a night. We got the last available room at the hotel. I called up after the first night and I spoke to the manager, and I said for 250 a night, you can at least give us free breakfast. The manager changed it to a romance package or something like that, where we still paid 250 a night but we got free breakfast. I still went to work but we had the heat and power and luxury of the hotel, and it was actually a little closer to my job. It was a relief that I didn’t have to stay home in a cold dark house with an elementary school aged child. The cold dark house part gets tiring after a few hours.

When I was little, in the 1970s, we never had hurricanes or terrible storms around here, so this wasn’t something I had any experience with until the past 15 years or so.

I stayed at a friend’s who lived a mile away for two nights during Sandy, then came home to a house with no power and some slight damage. It was only 10 months after my Ex and I split up so I was very vulnerable. I had no power for 12 days. It was a bad time.

Sandy was horrible for NJ and NY. I have stories about my family in NYC and Sandy. I felt like the city and buildings did nothing to help people who really needed help. It felt completely unorganized.

Oh, I just saw that possibly Hurricane Leslie is forming (my namesake!) and for now is estimated to hit where I live when I’m supposed to fly back home on Saturday. That’s not good. I hope if it does develop it doesn’t start affecting anything until Sunday. When I look at the map it looks like it could be sooner rather than later. :(

Usually, I don’t pay much attention 6–7 days out, but I will be watching the updates closely.

I just saw Sunday of later. Thank goodness.

@jca I’m in South Florida and have a house in NW Alabama. When I evacuate to Alabama I will not be able to get home for a week due to traffic and scarce fuel. I haven’t left since Irma because my elderly mom can’t travel and I will not leave town even though the retirement home where she lives is wonderful and evacuate if necessary. . Evacuating always has its own set of problems and lately I’ve chosen to stay. It looks like Helene #2 may show up this weekend. If that appears to be coming together I am driving up to Alabama. I can’t do another storm right now.

@SnipSnip I never evacuate, but I’ve never lived in an evacuation zone except for a condo I owned at one point on South Beach, and there weren’t any hurricanes when I had a place there. When I owned it I had a house 7 miles inland in Boca though, so I would have just stayed there anyway.

Are you saying your mom’s place is in an evacuation zone?

It looks like what is brewing in the Gulf might be going to AL. I doubt it will be more than a Cat 2 since Helene just came through and we are already in October. I assume the Gulf waters are cooler with all of that churning up that just happened.

The storm was NO joke.
The “death toll” I heard (130,) was staggering for such a storm.
I see we have lost several entire towns, and a LOT of damage occurred in some bigger cities too.

They drained our lakes, like right before the storm, because they knew we’d be getting the water from NC, and the upstate.
These lakes, are massive.
I’ve read some concerning reports, that my area could potentially flood, from the water coming here.
I’m not far from Lake Moultrie, or the Tale Race Cannal. I’ll be watching, for alerts.

Yeah. It’s a total “boy who cried wolf” thing. That gets some people killed.
You get complacent, or just can’t leave. Even shelters are no guarantee of safety.
It’s a decision, each time.
I guarantee, a LOT of people got caught off guard and the water is always such a major factor in what happens.
Sadly. Some of the dead, were just people impaired by health, or circumstances, who may not have even known the storm was coming or had a false sense of security in their location or capabilities.
Water is SO heavy, and violent.
The worse it gets, stuff begins floating in the water and knocking bigger things down. The constant rain, saps the strength of the soil itself, and then you see the big oaks tipping over.
Unless you’ve seen how fast a flood can happen, it doesn’t seem realistic.

The wind is no help, if the eye gets close, you may get sustained winds from East to West, then sustained winds from West to East.
It really is a “perfect storm,” for maximum destruction.

I think we’re all a little complacent. The fact is, an act of nature, could wipe any one of us (or millions of us,) at ANY time.

To me, having lived right on the SC coast for so long, I think most of the game is won by preparation.
That doesn’t mean one thing specifically, and could be fortifying an existing structure, or making sure you have a plan for several possibilities and directions on how and where ro fall back to if your first location is suddenly uninhabitable.

It’s not dumb, to wear a motorcycle helmet, and life jacket, if that will get you to the closest strong building.
The people who prepare SOME type of plan, have the best chance at survival. Even if it seems ridiculous that you are going to be affected.

And Yes. Still a few more storms, to dodge maybe. It’s not unlike nature, to kick us when we’re down. I hope the rescue efforts can cease, in case another storm comes.

^^The cried wolf thing is real. Now that the weather news wants to scare people so they stay tuned in, they are less clear about areas that will be less affected. They just make sound like everyone who will be affected by the hurricane are all going through a cat4.

One hurricane not long ago the news had people so freaked out in my state, people who had never evacuated before and newcomers were driving 4–5 counties or out of state to feel safer. The roads were bumper to bumper; a 4 hour drive took 7. One friend of mine where I live was terrified and drove to Georgia. That storm chased her for days, she vowed never to evacuate again. Remember that where I live will never be an official ordered evacuation area by state, except for mobile homes. We are where people can evacuate to.

With Helene you could see on DeSantis’ face and hear in his tone that he knew some people were going to really suffer or die. A few hours before it started to really affect FL he was saying this is your last chance and if you are staying in an evacuation zone make sure you tell someone and the phone numbers you can call to register yourself. It was the look on his face and tone that basically said it’s crazy to stay put.

People will say, “why do they keep rebuilding on the coastline” but there is a ton of risk near interior waterways also.

^True. However, at least where I live, the erosion is awful. A lot of current beachfront housing, used to be a house further away from the ocean.
When the storms leave, sometimes it takes a LOT of beach with it.

^^In FL too. They do rebuild the beaches after storms, but not everything gets resanded and not necessarily the same as before. Sand is not only eroded from the shoreline, sand can be deposited too.

My sister is on day six without power, but she does have cell service. She lives on the outskirts of town where there are no businesses so her neighborhood is on the bottom of the list to get restored. She’s hoping to have power in a few days.

I hope so @jonsblond but local TV stations (north Caroina) are saying might take weeks for power and cell service and water in some areas much later . . like 2025.

Hope that is not true for her.

@JLeslie in Charleston we dredge two of our rivers, so bigger ships can be accepted at our numerous ports.
The “sand,” dredged up, is what I think we usually use to replace beaches. It’s NOT the same. That’s for sure…