Hurricane Matthew

[Mortblanc]

Well folks, just letting you know how things are moving along over here. We have hit a little bump in the road.

It was not a nuclear explosion, nor a collapse of the financial system, or even a breakdown of the social structure with loss of law and order. It was not even a zombie Apocalypse.

It was a hurricane that covered an are larger than Great Britain, carried 130 mph winds and dropped up to 10" of rain per hour as it passed. And it passed slowly.

We have hundreds of thousands of homes and businesses without power. Millions of people working around a grid that has collapsed.

We have thousands of structures that will catch fire if reconnected to the grid at this point!

Last I heard the entire city of Jacksonville FL was without power! Jacksonville is the largest city, according to land mass, in the U.S.

Now that most of the winds are gone, and the storm surge is abated, the floods are beginning from the huge amount of surface run off. Charles Harris should be in the middle of that part as we speak. The beast is sitting over West VA right now.

Curviews have been declared from dusk to dawn over most of the affected area, which again, is the size of GB. The restrictions are as much to protect and control the use of emergency service and volunteer workers as to control Law and order. If people are staying in their homes they will not need to answer as many emergency calls for idiots driving into high water, getting washed away in their vehicles and having trees fall on them while they roam about. Several cities closed their hospitals, evacuated all patients, and Emergency Rooms are not available.

This is going to take more than two cans of beans and a change of batteries for the torch to sort out! We will have people without power for several days, if not weeks. Cleanup for these things usually takes a full year.

As for me? Well the U.S. is a big place. I am about 300 miles from the storm sitting in the sunshine with temps at 72f and a gentle breeze blowing, watching it all on TV.