"Mortimer Schnerd, RN" wrote

Since Charlotte was directly along a straight line between Raleigh (where
I was)
and Charleston (where the hurricane was) I flew along at Mach 3 and made
the
quickest time I'd ever done for that leg.

I woke up around 0400 when the power went off and my ceiling fan stopped.
There
was no leaving the neighborhood for the next 30 hours or so due to fallen
trees
but then I got out and drove to the airport.

Glad your plane turned out all right.

Ahh, Hugo! Where I am in NC was in that straight line, also. We still had
power and I was watching the radar on TV, and saw the eye wall approach
Lenoir; then the power went out. Massive destruction, everywhere.

Later, I saw a replay of the radar, and as the eye hit the mountains, it
broke up the circulation. As an observer, that was exactly right. We had
the building wind, the wind suddenly switched from East to North, then the
wind suddenly stopped. Sitting blind, I was expecting the other side of the
eye wall to hit, but it never did.

For about two weeks afterwards, anytime you went outside, you could hear the
sound of chainsaws running, in all directions. Life slowly returned to
normal, but it was slow.

The ironic thing was that lots of folks like you fled Charleston, and came
to Charlotte, only to be trapped here, with nearly as much damage as
Charleston.

One rule of hurricanes still holds; you can't out guess them.
--
Jim in NC