Sooooo sitting here in the dark while Matthew destroys my house...

[LadyHonor]

Well maybe heisnt completely destroying my house, but I know he got the gutters on the front side. We spent three days preparing for him to hit. Living on a farm, we had a LOT of stuff outside that needed to be anchored or moved in doors. Anyway now we've lost power so I am bored to tears, so I'm whining about it in the forums. Lol

[DoctorKaizeld]

go tell him you will tell his wife

[LadyHonor]

If she's anything like her husband I don't want to go anywhere near her. I've always liked thunderstorms, but hurricanes are entirely different. I believe other than the gutters the house is fine. But I am dreading doing the walk around on the property in the morning. It isn't going to be pretty.

[DoctorKaizeld]

no, no it wont. good luck to you though.

[TheVampireDante]

Then you get this...

 

[DoctorKaizeld]

'Murica!

[LadyHonor]

It's beginning to calm down now. Besides the rain gutters being ripped down, it's a pretty safe bet we lost at least part of the roof on the pack house. It has a tin roof and you can hear it slapping in the wind. An update from the power company says we should have power in our sometime tomorrow. They are awesome. if we're lucky (which usually we aren't) we won't even need to run the generators. It was almost dark here when we lost power and it was pretty bad. So we set up the port-a-cribs in the living room and got the babies ready for bed. They are used to playing in the den because we rarely use the living room. So they thought it was cool to be "campng out" in there. As for dude running in the storm....well, I'm not in Florida, but we have our share of redneck nuts here in North Carolina who think during a hurricane getting out and driving around in it is the coolest thing in the world to do. They neglect to think of all the first responders they put in jeopardy for their stupidity. My son is on the fire dept and has to get out in this mess for idiots like that. I have very little sympathy for them. Edited October 9, 2016 by LadyHonor

[LadyHonor]

welp the sun is coming up or at least daylight is coming on us. so far as best as I can tell from inside the house it is confirmed the gutters are gone. I expected that. what I didn't expect was my front porch gone as well. the brick steps and foundation and junk is still there but the railings and columns supporting the roof are gone. some pieces are laying in the front yard. there's one section in my son's yard. the tin roof on the pack house looks like it will be an easy fix. just roll it back out and nail the sucker down. we were fortunate. so far all the damage we've seen is stuff we can fix ourselves. still waiting on power tho. we faired way better this go round than we did with Fran. Fran put a pine tree limb through our living room window and soaked half the house.

[Lisnpuppy]

I am happy to hear that you and your loved ones are well, despite the loss of the porch. Hopefully you all can get a new one built up soon.

[LadyHonor]

I was wrong in that assessment. Terribly wrong. Eastern North Carolina is a disaster. There is massive flooding every where. Although our home was spared, many of our friends and loved ones lost everything they have. The roads are impassible and it took us two days before we could make it to the nearest town which was a pointless effort because everything is either underwater or closed. We had power, but no water. There is literally water EVERYWHERE, but none of it is fit to drink. We finally got water today (thank you Lord!). We own and live on a farm, but we aren't farmers. My husband works in industrial refridgeration maintainence (not the refridgerators like you have in your kitchens, but the kind the size of a warehouse) and well.....I was a youth minister until about four years ago. Now I'm director of the music department. Anyway, altough we live on a farm, another farmer rents the land from us and his fields are underwater in what we call the back fields (you can't see them from the house because of a tiny streak of woods). So his crops (soy beans and corn) are pretty much a total loss for him, which is terrible because that's his earnings for this year. Insurance should cover most of it, but is it still a huge loss.

 

Our home is located in an area locally known as Goshen Swamp, and yes it is a real swamp with snakes and alligators. lol Anyway, our house is 3/4 of a mile off the road on path leading through a streak of woods that opens up into fields which is where our house is. Surprisingly, the dirt road or 'the path' as we call it, is in really good shape. The main road, however, is not. The Goshen Bridges at the Bloody Bucket (local names) are under water. Roads are washed out. My youngest son who is still in college is stranded in a city called Lumberton, NC (he spent the weekend with friends) and it is even worse there than where we are. He can't get home and we can't go get him because EVERYTHING is under water. It took us two days to get to the nearest town to us (Mount Olive, NC) and when we got there, it was pretty much a wasted trip because there is no power. Where my youngest is, there are people still waiting on their rooftops for rescue.

 

The people are North Carolina are really suffering. So please keep us in your thoughts and if you are the praying sort, we'd appreciate prayers as well.

 

Some pics:

http://i65.tinypic.com/2u9ubdh.jpg

http://i64.tinypic.com/e17lt2.jpg

http://i64.tinypic.com/5x2wdz.jpg

 

Video of the road going to the Goshen Bridges (we couldn't make it to the bridges, too much water running over the road):

https://youtu.be/066EkeV24gM