If you’ve never lived in the South and had a major hurricane barreling toward you at 6mph, this is the story for you! All of the uncertainty, the day by day changes, and the challenges the rise up even when you’re not in harm’s way. This is our experience with Hurricane Florence in Charleston.

9.8.18 – Saturday

This morning the NHC showed a cat 4 or 5 heading straight for Charleston and it made me feel sick. I spiraled for a bit, wondering what we’d do if we lost the boat, where we’d go from here. I briefly talked to Kyle about which would be worse, losing the boat, or having the boat damaged but salvageable (definitely the second one, “salvageable” doesn’t fit our timeline). We went to Pawleys Island Brewing to take our mind off things and discuss our timeline for quitting, but I was anxious and found it impossible to speculate about the future beyond Florence. The 5pm NHC update looked much more promising and I calmed down after that. I know she’s a long way out and things are still going to change a lot.

We talked to the marina staff to see if we’d get kicked out for any reason (ie couldn’t stay on the boat for cat 3 or above?) and they didn’t think there were any policies in place for that kind of thing, but they didn’t think we’d have to leave.

9.10.18 – Monday

It looks like NC is going to bear the brunt of it. Kyle’s dad runs a marina in coastal NC, they’re probably going to see 3 feet of rain and the whole marina will be underwater. We’ve visited our friends new beach house in Oak Island a couple times, the eye is heading straight for OI now so that must be awful for them. This storm is going to do massive damage no matter where it hits.

The governor held a press conference and ordered evacuations of all coastal counties. We’re expecting storm surge and some uncomfortable weather, so we’re at least planning on spending Thursday night somewhere else, but we want to be back right away so we won’t go far. We don’t see the need to evacuate beyond the storm surge zone, and not for more than a night or two.

HOWEVER we got home from work and our neighbors told us that since evacuations had been ordered, the marina was closing and everyone had to be out by 5pm tomorrow. There are so many reasons that sucks. We have to do all our boat hurricane prep tonight. We have to find a place to stay for at least four nights, which is way too long to be a surprise houseguest to any of our friends. We don’t know when the marina will open up again. And the storm doesn’t even look like it’s heading for us!

We stayed up late stripping down all the canvas, adding lines and fenders, cleaning up the boat, and taking photos of all our belongings. We packed a ton of stuff into the car and bus. It looks like the worst we’ll get is storm surge, which the boat will handle fine, but if the parking lot floods the marina may be inaccessible and the surge could do serious damage to our vehicles, so we’re taking both vehicles with us.

9.11.18 – Tuesday

I drove in to work and a couple hours after I arrived, they announced they were closing at noon and that we should call in beginning Thursday to find out when they would reopen. I asked a coworker if we could stay with her for two nights. At noon I went to Kyle’s work and hung out there while he finished up his day. I tried to get work done but I really just watched the weather. We headed to my coworkers house then went out for Mexican. It feels really weird to be so displaced.

9.12.18 – Wednesday

The new models show Florence heading toward NC then curving down to Charleston. She’s also slowing down, not forecast to hit here until Sunday. We’re going to see some strong south wind on Sunday, which is the worst direction for the boat, but it’s what we prepared for.

Kyle went in to work today, but he didn’t get much done and he came home right after lunch. We’ve been playing with our host’s 3-year-old, we all got dinosaur tattoos today.

Tomorrow we’ll move to another friend’s house. She is past her due date to have a baby, so she and her husband are evacuating to a place where the hospitals are fully staffed and emergency services are still functioning. We’ll house sit and watch their cats. I was planning on making some freezer meals for them while I was there, but Kyle went to pick up groceries and the grocery stores are closed.

Now I’m starting to get nervous. I thought this thing would be wrapped up by Friday, now it looks like it will drag out until Monday. We thought we’d be at the boat with plenty of food and water, but now we have no supplies and the stores are closed.

I have a flight scheduled for Saturday, I was going to fly up to Michigan to see some friends and family. Thursday and Friday flights have already been cancelled and I imagine Saturday and Sunday flights will be soon. If my flight isn’t cancelled, do I stay here or go? I don’t want Kyle to deal with the storm and aftermath on his own. I’ll keep watching the weather. The decision will probably be made for me when flights are cancelled.

It’s cold here because they have AC (ours only cools the berth), I don’t have any jackets or sweatshirts. We’re eating their food and I feel so guilty about that. We could have bought groceries yesterday but we didn’t know where we’d be staying or what kind of fridge space we’d have. At this point it almost sounds good to evacuate inland just so we can take care of ourselves rather than rely on other people. I’m sure there are no hotels left though, and who knows what the gasoline situation is like. This sucks. I had a sweatshirt at work that I should have grabbed. We should have bought food yesterday when the grocery stores were open.

9.13.18 – Thursday

Kyle and I stayed up just long enough to see the 11pm NHC update last night, it looked quite favorable for Charleston so we slept well. In the morning we helped our hosts clean up the yard for high winds, then we headed over to Kyle’s office to kill some time until Jim and Frances took off. We’re talking about possibly stopping by the boat tomorrow to grab some food supplies, otherwise we’ll be raiding our friends pantry. It’s strange to have such ample supplies at home but nothing onhand. Today we’ve mostly been watching livecams, my current favorite is the Atlantic Beach Pier – that used to be my go-to beach in college when I lived in New Bern, NC.

9.14.18 – Friday

Kyle didn’t want to go out to the boat, and I didn’t have a good reason to, so instead I checked out the neighborhood chatter regarding what stores were open. We ventured out to Publix for some essentials (crackers, frozen pizza, beer). It was busy but not insane, and surprisingly well stocked, we went to the Cane Bay subdivision Publix rather than the Goose Creek Publix based on what the residents forum was advising – no regrets. We also have fresh garden produce to snack on!

It sounds like the situation in New Bern is pretty dire, with 10 ft of storm surge. It’s a little crazy because we used to live there so we’re very familiar with the area. The news is reporting calls for 150 people to be rescued due to flooding. We’re extremely fortunate here, so far the Charleston harbor buoy is reporting winds about half of what NOAA is forecasting, with sustained 15kt and gusts up to 25kt. Water levels are about a foot below what was predicted, so we’re not seeing any storm surge yet. The neighborhood we’re staying in is breezy and gusty but we haven’t even had any rain.

All in all, no complaints for us. The worst part is that my Michigan trip is definitely cancelled, as they’ve now put me on a flight that arrives in Grand Rapids at midnight on Sunday which would hardly leave any time to visit. Oh, and we probably won’t be able to get back on the boat until Monday, and I don’t know where we’re going to stay Sunday night since our hosts should be back then, and they may or may not have a newborn with them so we certainly want to stay out of their way.

9.15.18 – Saturday

Jim and Frances are coming home today, a day earlier than they planned. Kyle and I were literally discussing heading back to the boat tonight when he got a group text from the marina manager saying that no one was allowed back at the marina yet. We called up more friends, but their guest room is occupied with another evacuee. That’s fine, we can stay in the bus. However, it’s much more comfortable to just stay here, so we made sure it truly wasn’t an imposition for Jim and Frances, and now we’re taking advantage of their generosity for one more night (unless Frances goes into labor). We’re heading back to the marina tomorrow morning though.

The boat is still without power, so we’d have no AC, and it’s raining so we can’t open it up anyway. It is definitely not the most comfortable place to be right now. I can’t wait to go home though.

9.16.18 – Sunday

We packed up our stuff early this morning, dropped the bus off at Kyle’s office, then headed out to the marina. We weren’t sure what we’d find, but everything looked exactly as we left it. Unfortunately, our batteries were drained. Kyle had pulled everything out of the fridge and switched that off, so the freezer was the only thing using battery power, but it must have a low-voltage shut-off (which is a good thing) and it was off. We started up the engines to start charging the batteries, then Kyle headed back to the car for another load of stuff.

Shortly after Kyle left, I recognized the uniform and gait of the marina manager, James. With both engines running we weren’t exactly stealthy. Kyle ran into James on his way back from the car, who promptly said “You’re not supposed to be here.” Kyle apologized – we hadn’t been given the all-clear to return yet. When we first got word about the marina closing, we debated who would be the assholes who refused to leave their boats. I never guessed it would be us (we saw at least 3 other people when we arrived, so we weren’t the first ones to break the rules).

We later got a text from James stating that the marina would reopen at 9am on Monday, and power wouldn’t be turned on until then. James is really chill and I don’t think it bothered him that we are here – it’s our home, after all. But he has to answer to the park system, which is making blanket rules for county parks and disregarding the fact that some people live on parks property.

So, no power until tomorrow. That means no AC, no TV, and no internet. It is stiflingly hot, we were crazy bored before we came back to the marina and now there’s not much we can do.

After Kyle started to really get crazy eyes, we went to a brewery to try to get some work done using the wifi. Kyle researched power / solar / wind gen systems – we clearly need some upgrades considering our system won’t even run the freezer for a week – and I’ve posted about six months worth of blog posts. I caught up quite a bit this weekend, which is great considering I’m putting in my notice at work this week. As soon as I do that, time is going to start moving really quickly. We plan to start moving the boat to NC the day after I quit work.

9.17.18 – Monday

Power was turned on at about 4am, Kyle had us all hooked up to shower power already so he saw an outlet light turn on (neither of us were sleeping anyway, it was way too hot and humid). He immediately turned on the AC and we both fell into a deep sleep…about six minutes before our alarms went off.

We’re both back at work today, with power back on things are back to normal. Fin.