Posts Tagged news

Writing this off and on through the day Sunday. Lost power last night as well as cell service. We are all ok and fine. Lots of debris to clear up but no damage at all to house or property. A lot of the area experienced a lot of flooding and water damage. We worked this morning to clear the front yard and haul it all to the back to be disposed of at a later date.
We had power all through the first half of the storm but once the eye passed over the backside was worse than the front. Lots of heavy wind and rain. Soundside experienced a lot of flooding. A lot of homes at lower elevations had water inside. Listening to the local radio to get information as no one has any access to any news other than locals calling in to report. Getting updates from county management as well from the radio. News so far for power to our area is that they can’t get to the substation down the road from us. So the whole lower half of the county will be out of power for an indefinite time. Will try to post this as soon as I get a signal. More later.

The waiting game is in full swing and listening to the updates closely. Latest update at 2 shows the wind speed has dropped a small bit, but this is still a very large massive storm with potential for a lot of wind and rain. As well it is a slow moving system and we are expected to have a combo of tropical storm/hurricane conditions for approxiamately a 21 hour period, so the danger is still there in that respect. We’ve settled in now and all preparations are done. I’m trying not to eat up all the snack food we bought for the next few days, that’s a hard task as well for me ;) Just keeping an eye on the updates now. The outer bands have been moving through since the morning but not much to them, I just took a look outside and the cloud cover is becoming a lot heavier now so it will likely be a day or more before we see the sun again. Who knows what else we might see then!

I’ve been on the BBC Radio again ths year as well! another two minutes of fame for this year. lol I replied again to a story on the hurricane on their site and they contacted me requesting an interview. I did one last night for one of the local radio stions, can’t remember now which one, but just a quickie. Then this morning was contacted by BBC Radio Wales requesting one early this afternoon, which was fun to do, and just now got a call from the BBC London requsting one for this evening for one of their main news programs, or should I spell it, programmes!? I won,t bother trying to record it though. so don’t worry you will have to listen to the audio file! ;)

Back after a while for another update, long as we have power, Peace out from Grandy, NC Hurricane Central

Waking this morning to a bit of better news, the storm has weakened even if only by a few miles an hour, category 2 now and hopefully no major intensification. Still going to be a lot of wind and rain in the area. Praying we will be spared any major damage. I grabbed this image showing the latest projected path of the storm (purple line) the red star is our house. too close for comfort!

We’re settled in and have made all our preparations, just a bit more tidying up of the yard to do this morning. Forecast calls for the outer bands of the storm to be moving in the area around midday. they have just reached the Cape Hatteras area this morning aound 5:30 am. Conditions will go downhill from there through the night bringing tropical storm force winds and heavy rain. Hurricane conditions are expected early Saturday morning. Anxious time now just waiting. You dont think about it so much when you’re busy doing things to get ready, but when the prep is all done and you’re just watching the news and weather, it gets to you a bit. To all our friends in the area, stay safe and pray for things to pass over without any major damage. More as it comes

Link to a page in memory of those who have died in the protests

http://1000memories.com/egypt

Spreadsheet view

My sincere respect and admiration for the revolution that is happening in Egypt.

I can’t begin to express how much the events in Egypt these last two weeks have brought forth such deep emotion, I am unable really to put into words how I view this as one of the greatest moments of human civilisation. Revolution is nothing new to the world, but I can’t think of any other one that came about in this way, there was no political agenda, no religious agenda, no ideological agenda, only common folks from all walks of life and all ages who were fed up to the point they couldn’t stand it anymore and who are now on the verge of toppling a corrupt regime that has been in business for 30 years. Where it will end is yet to be known, but every one should be aware, and EVERY (including ours) government of world as well, what can happen when those who dictate or govern a people fail to hear those very same people. My utmost respect and prayers to those of the #jan25 revolution. Stay safe and hold strong.

I have a flood of comments wanting to come out and may express them at a later date, maybe not, but for now I will say to the people of Egypt to please understand that the views of the US media and their paranoia and self centeredness and ignorance don not reflect the views of every American, we are with you , if not in person, in spirit and praise.

Here are some links to some sites/news agencies that I have been keeping up with.

http://www.youtube.com/user/AlJazeeraEnglish Aljajeera English live feed (down the page a bit) Kudo to them for the coverage they have given this from the start, when I couldn’t even find a US news program that had anything more than a tagline, “unrest in Egypt”! and a link to their English web site http://english.aljazeera.net/

One of the protestors in the area, who goes by the name of Sandmonkey , heres his twitter page http://twitter.com/#!/Sandmonkey and his blog http://www.sandmonkey.org/ very bright and brave individual, very good read on his blog.

Also a good way to keep up with news is twitter, # egypt search, http://twitter.com/#search?q=%23Egypt

mind there’s plenty of rumour and irrelevant tweets there as well, but many of them are right from Egypt.

more later, for now our prayers are with and we stand with you.

This morning our county decalred a state of emergency when it began to issue evacuation orders for visitors in the outer banks part of the county. This state of emergency also suspends the sale of alcohol in the county, much to the dismay of many! lol well lucky we made our purchases yesterday!!

I suppose its a good thing they do this, I’m sure alcohol causes some stupid decisions/actions when it comes to hurricanes, but I’m sure many already have stocked up as we did!

Will have more pics and things on in a bit as we have a few more preparations to do before the weather gets bad, and Alison once again got an interview with BBC newcastle radio this morning! She’s a star now! They prerecorded an interview which will be braodcast in the morning on BBC  Newcastle radio tomorrow morning about 7:20 am UK time. Heres the link to the program for anyone interested to hear it!

Water storage in preparation

 Seriously though we are getting prepared, beginning to clear the yard and deck, storing water for the inevitable power outage that usually follows these things. I’ve learned from experience that having PLENTY of water on hand is the most important thing, After Isabel we had 8 days with no power, temps in the high 90′s and unberable high humidity. Believe me it was wonderful to be able to even wash up in a basin of water during those days, not to mention having a “flush” supply on hand! That year I did the normal “filling the bathtub” before the storm which I had never done and it was the best decision i made. But we cut it very close as the last day of no power we were down to the bottom of the tub! So this time in addition to the tub we have filled a few plastic totes with water in preparation. We’ve got about 50 gallons on hand so far and will fill some more tomorrow. I expect tomorrow will find evacuation orders issued for all the beach areas and probably Currituck as well, at least the Outer Banks portion of the county. We will monitor the track and strength and decide tomorrow if we are going to stay. As it stands now we will stay and hunker down. As is ususal today was a clear beautiful day, calm and hot. Calm befor the storm… check out our commentary if you’d like :)

Calm before the storm and More Calm before the Storm

Handy Hugo's in Grandy, NC during the November Nor'easter

Just a bit of the flooding that occured during the last couple of days here in northeastern NC from the nor’easter that hit us, the remnants of tropical cyclone Ida

behind the Exxon station in Grandy

A view from behind the Exxon station in Grandy, NC on Thursday November 12, 2009

Neat little iframe containing feeds and links to various pages concerning the swine flu outbreak.