h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

..."Wouldn't it be cool if a hurricane hit while we were here?"
- as we were passing the hurricane evacuation route signs on our drive to the North Carolina coast last month.

My answer, of course, was "Ummmm, no. That wouldn't be cool at all."

And, of course, I was right. (Not to blow my own horn, but I usually am).

The cousins we were staying with in Moorehead City evacuated to Raleigh. They've gotten a few reports from home, and I expect they'll try to return today.

The beaches we walked and played on are completely under water. Much of the area is inaccessible due to water and sand over the roads. The house we were staying in has taken some minor damage, I think they said the roof is leaking in a few places and the power was out. Cell towers are overloaded so communication is hit and miss. And the pier we walked on our last night has been mostly destroyed. It was the last one on Atlantic Beach.


On a similar weather-disaster related note, I noticed that the one house visible from highway 70 that was completely destroyed by the Good Friday tornado was finally torn down last Wednesday. I kept driving by it every day wondering when they were going to do something with it. All of the other damage visible from the highway has seen noticable improvement except for that one house. There have been reports on the news lately about homeowners that have gotten burned by contractors over tornado repairs. There were a couple of really poor neighborhoods that were hit, and there are families that still cannot live in their own houses.

That was the tornado during which mr b famously said "hit the house, hit the house!" The tornado missed us by about 3 miles, and was only an EF1 in our area. (It became an EF4 by the airport where most of the damage was).

Hey, Hyp... how is Joplin faring these days? I've been wondering about that; there's always so much media attention right after the fact, then most people forget about it weeks later while the clean-up and rebuilding will last for months and years.