Hurricane Nicole

Day 40-41 – Nov 9-10

Weather – Wet and windy

We spent most of yesterday afternoon awaiting the hurricane. To be honest, there wasn’t much to do. Rusty and I decided to head down to Publix around Lunch time to pick up a few supplies for dinner – probably a mistake considering the car park was full and there were hoards of people picking up some last-minute items. They had closed the schools as they use them as refuge centres, and we bumped into Kristin and her kids as they were checking out. No one seemed to be concerned. I decided to quickly pick up some important necessities – you never know how long roads might shut down, we could be cut off for quite some time. It could be hard but if you have the basics you can get though. The necessary supplies for our charcuterie platter were selected, although I must point out that there were no good soft cheese options. Is Brie not a thing here??? I guess a soft Goats cheese will do, but I except some justifiable criticism. There seemed to be lack of French cheeses overall and I would have preferred a Comte to the Manchego I picked up. But there you have it, during these times of crisis you just have to think on your feet. As the rib eyes had already been purchased, I selected some large russet potatoes to bake and a key lime pie for dessert. A nice simple meal, with a grazing plate throughout the afternoon, I think we might just make it thorough the worst of it, but obviously not without some sacrifices.

After such an ordeal Rusty and I thought a light lunch would help prepare us for the day ahead. Sonny’s BBQ was just across the road, so we headed there. I think light lunch might mislead some readers, so I might just clarifiy here – I ordered the meat platter with beans and coleslaw, chicken, pulled pork, brisket, and ribs. Washed down with endless soda, in the largest cups you’ve seen, I had barley got through half of one, before the waitress came past with another “just in case”. We rolled out of there and drove back home, some rain coming down at times, but generally it was just overcast and the temperature was mild.

The afternoon involved a lot of weather channel watching – I’m glad we moved from the beach – a few buildings in Daytona Beach had collapsed and the waves were pounding the sea walls and it wasn’t even close to high tide. Officially Tropical Storm Nicole became Hurricane Nicole after it passed the Bahamas. This meant that there were sustained winds speeds of 75mph. The footage coming though of some of the beach areas was pretty intense. At Kathy and Macs on the other hand, there was a light drizzle. Lucy and I jumped in the lack for fun. We spent the rest of the afternoon relaxing and playing upwords, and obviously grazing on cheeses and salami and prosciutto.

The Hurricane hit in the early hours of the morning. To be honest, it felt more like a standard storm at this stage – the winds were up, but nothing too concerning. We’ve had worse winds out our house. The rain was pretty intense though. At about 4:30am the power went out, and the generator didn’t kick in straight away. Mac had to go out to the shed and stuff around with it until he got it working.

Sunrise told the tale of the storm. The dock is now underwater by about 2inches, and there were a couple of big branches down. Mac seemed to think this could be from some sort or tornadic wind event – I’m not sure that’s even a real word, but Mac used it with confidence, so I’m running with it as well.  As I write this, the power is still out and the wind is turning around to come from the south to south west as the storm passes north. Hurricanes rotate counter clock wise, and as we are on the east side of Lake Charles, as the Hurricane moves north, the wind changes, and is starting to come from the south east direction now. When it comes in from the west, we might get some rain coming at an angle the gets the porch wet – as a precaution, this morning we moved all the furniture in further under cover.

As the internet is out I’m using my phone – photos will follow when everything is back up and running.

The dock in Dec 2019