Hurricane Isabel: will NC survive?

Mostly because the TV news folks welcome the chance to get some airtime and indulge their passion for lurid scenarios. Checking the local newspaper I read:

DURHAM -- Durham leaders were preparing this morning for the worst kind of weather as Hurricane Isabel headed toward landfall near Cape Lookout.

But even as they imagined flash flood and power outage scenarios from excessive rain and wind, the consensus among city-county emergency management officials was that Durham's brush with Isabel -- likely tomorrow afternoon -- would be more like a windy rainstorm of inconvenience than a destructive, twisting maelstrom, like Hurricane Fran.

That has happened only once in my twenty years here in the Land of Tarheels.

I slept through Fran and woke up to find the power off. We were lucky and got it back by mid-afternoon. Some folks had to wait a few days. (Yance had to wait two weeks, the penalty of living on a small side street.)

Probably memories of last year's ice storm leave lots of people fearful. Electricity was out almost everywhere for several days (several weeks in the minimally inhabited spots). Originally I resented out gas stove but it kept most of the house warm while we waiting for the power to come back.

Aside from the tree limbs that fell off during the ice storm Duke Power later went around the city cutting off anything that looked like it might fall on a power line in the future. And did lots of rewiring.

Aside from buying extra coke and cigarettes I'm not going to do a damn thing. Hurricane Isabel may hit New Jersey anyway. Here I am talking about the weather and not doing anything about it.

Maybe it is best that Charles will have to stay in Raleigh until Saturday. He's yet to recover from the ice storm. If our power goes out I'll read by candlelight and nap.

(The folks on the NC coast will have a hell of time. They always do. Can't imagine living their of my own free will.)

Later entries on Isabel: Captain Sandy & Isabel and My one night stand with Isabel.