Post Hurricane Florence

Just sharing a few thoughts on the affects of the worst hurricane in Eastern North Carolina since 1954.

***It's hard to believe, but some people just got their power back on yesterday.  

*** This is a very common site even still. (Saw this house in person today)

If you look at the left side of this house, it has been caved in by that tree.

***There are huge black trucks with a crane, picking up fallen trees like the one above.  Seems like every time we turn a corner, there's one of these trucks. On some streets they need to stop at every house!

***This is where these trucks take the trees to be ground into sawdust    

Can't tell by this, but the mound is huge and growing.
It's spread over a large area.  Downtown Jacksonville

***ENC is so wooded, that in spring and summer it's very green and thick with leaves, so that in some places you can't see through the trees (ha ha).  But in the late fall and winter, so many leaves fall that the woods look more sparse and the trees are bare.  After this hurricane, the woods everywhere look like winter!  The kudzu is just bare vines and the trees are stripped.  Driving through Camp Lejeune today with Elaina, it looked like a giant had walked through each wooded area and grabbed handfuls of vegetation and dragged it along as he stormed through the woods.  I guess I should call the giant, Flo and not "a him."  There were 350 homes on base alone, that were damaged by Flo.

***There were reports of several tornadoes that hit during the storm.  We have seen so many fields of trees snapped in half, all facing the same direction.   I heard someone say that the principal at White Oak HS (had the most severe damage of our schools) was at the school during the hurricane and he believes it was hit by a tornado.

***Schools in Onslow County are still out next week.  There's so much damage and/or mold issues.  That's over three weeks that kids have missed out on school.  The state school authorities are making a decision on make-up weeks, or not.  Our church has two campuses; one location is one of the local high schools.  They can't meet there for church for a while, so central campus will be full!

***The Kentucky Baptist Disaster team has been continuing providing food for the Red Cross to take food out to different areas.  I helped serve lunch one day last week when people were still coming in droves through the parking lot to pick up hot food. My church continues to open their center for provisions for people who need it.  My plans is to volunteer there next weekend.

***The mosquitoes are relentless.  They are huge and vicious. I didn't have one bite all summer, until after the hurricane!  I'm also allergic to their saliva (according to google) and where they bite becomes a big, swollen welt that actually hurts. Why do they even exist?

***This has been a life-changing event for so many people.  I'm so grateful that we were safe and came home to our homes, safe and sound.