Good Luck and Be Safe - Flo's looking ominous

The pantry and frig are well stocked. We have plenty of water and gas for the generator. As ready as we'll ever be. Stay safe everyone.

Hope everyone rides this out safely. Flo is no joke...

Beer? Liquor is more concentrated. Two handles is about equivalent to a keg. Plus, liquor requires no refrigeration.

gone

So that little spot of blue in the middle of red looks to be right over The Farm. It stands for 15- 20 inches of rain.

This storm presents some very dire consequences in the two different ways typical of hurricanes and tropical systems.

The landfall, which the most reliable models point to Wilmington NC, will in itself be catastrophic because the storm is maintaining its form, strength and direction so consistently; there are no intervening forces. It's at cat 4 and may go to cat 5 but more likely stay or drop to cat 3-4 at landfall, at which time it will immediately drop 2 cats.

Physically it can't veer south but could veer north; if so it will come to Norfolk over Cape Hatteras and the sounds, again dropping 2-3 cats by the time it gets here, none the less causing massive destruction wherever it lands.

The second threat is that experts say it will stall over land, thus drawing in and dumping ungodly amounts of rain, whether it hovers or moves on. The current model is sending it right to Danville/Martinsville then to Kentucky, after that it falls apart. www.windy.com/?2018-09-15-15,36.883,-76.261,5

This repeats a well-known second disaster as was Camille that destroyed our Nelson County and it not to be underestimated.

Being as big a system as it is once it gets inland, it can easily repeat or eclipse Floyd in eastern North Carolina, sending the destruction not from the coast but toward it.

As we saw with Isabel, the swollen rivers like the James then overwhelm the water treatment plants in Richmond and other fall line localities; that one left Richmond without water for two weeks while the coast never lost water.

The primary threat to the Chesapeake Bay watershed is the consistent east winds that have already brought in storm tides along with a lunar high--my yard started flooding Saturday and has every day, getting higher, even though the local winds are light--todays was almost 1.5 feet above normal high. With the unrelenting but increasing winds, the water will pile up in the bay, even as far north as DC, so once we get the trop force winds or higher, there will be no low tide, just compounded highs. I may see the same height I saw as a child at Ash Wednesday--in the same house I'm in now.

but if we add 10" of rain on top of the compounded tides, we can possibly exceed previous flood stages even with out damaging winds, and the tides, filling the storm drains, means the water remains on the surface.

As the models stand now, Norfolk and the bay won't see extraordinary winds, but the already saturated grounds plus deciduous trees with full leave loads will result in lots of trees down and the attendant damage even with winds at the 35-45 mark.

Weather and tides are one of my things; I live for it, in it and with it. Most of the panic and hysteria I see is unnecessary but if it makes the weak of the herd evacuate, fine, even though I firmly believe that "inland is where coastal people go to die." I understand there are a lot of people who are simply unable to be self-sufficient and they need help, and should have it.

I hope all my friends (family) here and their own loved ones, and their homes, come through unscathed, and am grateful for those who work and serve in harm's way during and after this storm.

you too TOO; y'all had your close call with the dam and that could easily repeat. Can't let anything happen to the Texas Inn!

Jeez, at first they were only gonna evacuate SC; looks like they were off by a long-shot. My buddy from college lives on the NC coast, they skedaddled. It's gotta suck not knowing where you're gonna live when you get home.

We're probably too far away to provide any direct assistance, but anybody needs anything we can provide just let us know.

PLEASE, don't do anything stupid! Stuff is just stuff, and it sucks to lose the sentimental stuff, but everything can be replaced. You can't. Hoping all of you and your families get to safety with no damage to life or limb and minimal to property.

We love you!

This time you all should be OK, thankfully; I know other storms have reached you. Inland SC where Mrs Wales' people are will get whacked, I fear.

Ever since Lockn' drew me in, I've thought about a tropical storm system as one of the likely weather events; while people from all over the country can picture hot, cool, rain or other typical end-of-summer conditions, they often don't know what a trop system will do so far inland (unless they live nearby). The public views hurricanes/trop storms/northeasters as coastal events, but history shows (and will show again this weekend) that the more serious and long-lasting effects occur far from the beach. That microburst at L3 was just a flick of a finger.