With tropical storm Hannah perhaps becoming a hurricane before making landfall between Mytle beach and Wilmington, all eyes in Eastern North Carolina have been following the weather.
Those with access to a televsion have probably watched The Weather Channel.
Many people in offices must rely on their computers which are signed into a variety of sites from the Weatherunderground to Accuweather and Weather Channel website.
I kept checking the computer when I was at the office Friday morning. We did have a few minutes of nasty rain before things cleared off early in the afternoon.
It was nice enough that securing our boat and outdoor furniture was a very pleasant job on Friday just hours before the Hanna landfall.
The brief bout of super humid air that passed through the area on Friday morning had disappeared. At dusk we could only discern clouds to the west and south of our area. There was no wind and no rain.
We decided to go over to the beach for dinner. We noticed on the way over that Food Lion in Emerald Isle had closed. In the restaurant we found out that the grocery store had closed at 3 pm. That was twelve hours before Hannah was scheduled to make landfall in South Carolina close to 100 miles away.
Perhaps they were worried about the wind becoming strong enough to close the bridge to the mainland, and employees being stranded on the island. Anyway after dinner, I went back to checking the weather sites to see if I could find really detailed information. It turned out that there was very little new information on the computer sites. I resorted to calling a friend who lives on the SC/Ga. border.
According to him his area had also seen very little active wether so far. I wished that I had kep the phone number of our friend near Myrtle Beach. In the end we went to bed not really knowing what to expect in the morning.
During the night we heard both wind and rain. I got around 7:30 am only to find the power off. It didn’t take long to figure out that the power had not been off for long since the coffee was still hot.
Not wanting to give up a good cup of coffee, I poured myself a cup and enjoyed that before venturing outside. There I found a pretty good storm surge, but no worse than we had expected. Our rain gauge only showed one half inch of rain. That added to what we got Friday morning gave us a total of one inch of rain from Hanna.
There were a few pieces of pine limbs in the yard and my tomato plants seemed to have taken a beating, but we actually came through the storm in good shape. By the time I went back inside the power came back on and things were back to normal. Even the excess water behind the house disappeared quickly.
I guess in the end, the computers checking other computer sites were as effective as any other means in figuring out what might happen. At least with computers, I could avoid most of the weather channel hype.
I was pleased when the power came back on that I could send pictures of the storm to my friends.
Certainly people responding to other people are the best way to figure out what is happening. By the end of the day, I knew that the rain from Hanna didn’t make it past the Yadkin River, but that parts of the DC area got flooded while my friend in NJ got a good soaking from Hanna. Tomorrow I should find out what Hanna has in store for Nova Scotia.
It is nice to be connected even if it is with computers.
Our technological infirmity 
*looking right* your photos are amazing.