S1 is in grad school at UNC Chapel Hill - they just cancelled classes and advised students to leave - he is driving home early tomorrow morning.
I have family in Wilmington that will be coming here this afternoon. I also live on the water though, and at this point the water level is already up to my dock. I made hotel reservations - lol I don’t have a generator and just in case the dc/md/va gets hit I don’t want to be here without ac. Usually local hotels fill up quickly in power outages.
The mandatory evacuation has been lifted by the SC governor for Beaufort County. This goes from Beaufort down through Hilton Head and the surrounding inland areas. Of course, many left yesterday. We have a vacation home in a gated community there and, as they always do, our community has tree removal companies stationed inside the gates to deal with any fallen trees immediately. Here’s hoping they aren’t needed. Last time, we lost thousands and thousands of trees. It’s difficult to be relieved and hopeful with the trajectory change at this point, knowing that others are directly in the path of the landfall area.
Worst case predictions: 10-20 foot storm surge, hurricane force winds, 20-40+ inches of rain. Yow. If I lived near a river or creek in the hurricane area, I would be worried. That rainfall will be pouring out of the mountains for a week.
ARGH!!! Goskid2 is hunkering down in Chapel Hill…even though UNC advising all to leave. That kid accounts for most of my grey hairs…which I believe multiplied overnight…
@gosmom Daughter is at Duke and classes are cancelled as of 5:00 PM tomorrow. But, she is planning on staying there, even though she has a car to drive home. They are not asking students to leave though. Unlike UNC, most of the students are not local and parents have been reassured that dining will stay operational. Truckloads of extra food and bottled water have been brought in, and my understanding is that Duke is on their own power grid separate from the rest of Durham connected to the Medical Center and has tons of emergency generators as backups. I want her to come home, but I think that she is just as safe there as she would be driving home in rain and potential wind Wednesday evening. She’s all excited and has reassured me that her car is parked at the top of a hill and is not under any trees. 
Elon has told kids they should leave (not mandatory but strongly encouraged, campus is closing Thursday - Sunday), which is too bad because they are safer staying put, IMO. D doesn’t have a car and flights are expensive, I told her it makes no sense to spend that money to come home to Philly where it will rain all week-end and we will have down trees here too. She and a friend now considering driving to Tulane to stay with friend’s brother. She would be safer staying on campus, but with everyone now panicked about getting out of dodge, I can’t say it’s a bad idea to go somewhere fun, warm and sunny!!
Stay or go - it’s a tough call for college kids in North Carolina - my worry would be days without power. S1 is home now - arrived this morning - his decision.
We have a niece who had a terrible experience in Harvey in Houston last year - in a neighborhood that never flooded - until it did. She ended up being stuck in her 2nd floor apt for days - rescued by a military type truck - and ultimately her building was condemned because the first floor units were flooded - and she had to move.
After watching her go through that experience, I’d vote to leave - but I can see that staying might be fun unless power goes out.
I can’t recall a single incident in my 7 years of college/grad school where school was closed for weather or we were told to evacuate or shelter in place or anything similar—different times, different places! Also no shooters or violence we were aware of on campus.
People who are staying had better be ready for no power and no open businesses for days or weeks. That doesn’t sound fun to me.
@4kids4us Yikes. That sounds rough already. We’re on a well and this will be my first major weather event in this house. Not looking forward to flooding, but we’re inland so the winds won’t be too bad. Stay safe.
I guess the question for doubters would be “what would you regret about leaving”? Seems like much less to regret than staying.
Sure it may be a little inconvenient but you’ll probably be somewhere where you can live your life for the next few days (still get food easily, have internet access for schoolwork that needs to be done, have a relatively quiet place to sleep, electricity, etc.).
@TwinMom2023, do you have a generator? Being on a well, we decided a generator was a necessity.
I wouldn’t trust well water in a flooding event like this. It could easily be contaminated by surface water.
We have family in VA who have evacuated. Is there a website that tracks the amount of inland flooding?
The weather models continue to show the storm zipping along until it gets to the NC coast near Wilmington … then screeching to a halt. After that, the models are all over the place. Some go north, some southwest, and others inland. All have the storm weakening as it approaches NC, so that’s good news. Of course, the slow motion means more flooding in NC.
@HImom don’t know or care where you went to college…but even back in my Stone Age days, colleges did close for things like extended bad weather and flooding…resulting in no power.
And college shootings? I’m from Ohio…you aren’t. But Kent State required a LOT of sheltering in place at all of the state universities…and students were told they were leaving that campus, and most of the other Ohio public universities for the rest of the term…a mass evacuation with buses provided.
The latest forecast on my local news is showing that it won’t have much impact on the DC/MD area as the storm looks like it’s moving inland and slightly to south. It showed large amounts of rain all over the state of NC. My son has an out of conference game scheduled 2 hrs away on Friday, just 30 mins from the beach. We were planning on staying at our beach house that night, and if weather is good, stay all weekend. If weather is crummy, we were going to visit Salisbury University on Saturday (safety school for ds). I thought his game might get canceled but if forecast keeps the “cone” to the south, they may actually play.
However, though we havent had much rain since the weekend, we continue to have ridiculously high tides so once again, downtown was closed to cars and there was complete gridlock on our peninsula. Took my neighbor 45 mins to go three miles. Thankfully I didn’t need to go out during school/rush hour and dh worked from home. My son had to be at school early so he took my kids in before the traffic started.
On a different note, just this summer while dh was on a business trip, I took my kids to Wrightsville Beach - what a great little beach town. I hope they survive as the worst of it is supposed to hit there/Wilmington. My friend has a beachfront home on Bald Head Island - she is very worried.
Don’t forget the Texas Tower sniper in 1966 @HImom . There are numerous other tragic incidents that you aren’t remembering. There is just more social media attention these days.
William and Mary is closing dorms tomorrow and classes are cancelled at least through Sunday. They did the same in 2011 when my youngest was a sophomore. She went to her roommate’s house because we were living out of state.