Hurricane Matthew

Now unless you live on top of Mount Rushmore, you know that there was a hurricane called Hurricane Matthew that was shaking things up in the Caribbean a few weeks ago. And you know then it faced the United States, and rattled the southeastern area of it. Leading up to the onset of the wind and rainfall, talk was made concerning Florida, and evacuations were announced for the coastal areas of Georgia and South Carolina. The storm would probably hit land, but then spin back into the Atlantic Ocean. Except there was one problem. It didn't spin. And therefore, Florida, Georgia, and South Carolina didn't take the brunt of this storm. We did. North Carolina was slammed by a category 2 hurricane that was supposed to give us the threat of rain on Saturday. Yes, this "threat of rain" was originally adjusted to be 4 inches, but still, that's not what happened. That what we expected to happen. That's what we wanted to happen. North Carolina was clobbered. We, in the northeast most corner of the state, received over 10 inches of rain. 10 INCHES. That's basically the length of your forearm. In rainfall. In an area that is water level, surrounded by bays, and was already clambered with over a foot of rain in September. We weren't prepared. We didn't expect this. And it blew us out of the water.

Friday was just a normal day. Hurricane Matthew was going at it in Florida. But here, in North Carolina, we had a regular day. Yes, it was a mostly cloudy day, but it was a regular day just the same. We went to work. We came home from work. I went to the grocery store. I bought some bread. They finally had bread.

Saturday, I woke up, and the world was still the same, but I couldn't find my extension cord. I knew I could get one for about two bucks at Ollie's, so I decided to go get one. I checked the radar, saw I was going to make it back okay, and headed on my way. I didn't make it home before it started raining around 1pm, but that's okay. It rained like a regular rain. It wasn't till later that night that it really came down. Wind, pounding my townhouse. Thunder, crashing overhead. All the lights on, so I couldn't see the lightning, even though I know it was there. I stayed up really late that night, because I don't sleep well in thunderstorms. I stayed up until I was so exhausted, I knew I'd fall asleep, and I did.

Before I turned off the light, I took a look outside my window. My parking lot is above street level, so much so, that when driving, I have to enter it at an angle so I don't bottom out my car. But at that entrance, down the road, and into the soccer field across from my apartment, just water. What looked like almost endless. I could see where there was water and where there wasn't, but I have never seen so much there. There were two red cars parked in the street, both literally sitting in it. I don't think either of their owners thought that our street would flood like that, or they wouldn't have parked there. But it did.

I set my alarm for just after sunrise that morning. I just wanted to take a look at what it looked like, I wasn't planning on getting up at that hour. When I looked out my window at 7:30, the water at the entrance to my parking lot, gone. There was still some in the soccer field by the trees the little crest that they make, and on the edge of the street, but the road right outside, fine. I'd never have known there was so much water there five hours earlier if I hadn't seen it for myself. When I really got up, another 3 hours later, there was even less.

But my street was the exception. Looking on Facebook, everything in Elizabeth City was flooded. A friend of mine posted a video of her driving down the biggest road in town, the one that connects to the highway on both the northern and southern sides of the city, two lanes on each side, and a center turning lane, with a speed limit of 45, flooded. At the biggest intersection in our town. This is how it was. Everywhere. Schools were easily closed on Monday, though somehow Chowan (the county west of my work) went to school on Tuesday. I have no idea how they did that. Pasquotank (the county I live in) had an optional workday, but we were still completely closed. Wednesday they let us come in for an optional workday, and I was thrilled. I needed something to do with my days! A lot of the staff came in, but apparently one of the other teachers was only able to get to work by wading through her street to her mother, and took her car. Since we were able to come in, I was able to find out how the county was. Belvidere (a small town in the northern part of the county) was inaccessible after one bridge to get there was destroyed somehow, and the other was still underwater. We were out for lunch as a kindergarten team when we got the call that Thursday and Friday would also be optional workdays. Pasquotank and Camden were also closed all week, due to continued flooding in the Bunker Hill area in the northern border of the two counties.

By having no school, I was able to get a lot done, yes, but it also made the following week very difficult. For one, we were now a full week behind. But also, we were out for a week. My kids were bound to not remember how we do things in my classroom. And we didn't. BUT, I expected that. I was ready, I actually expected them to remember less than they did, so I was pretty impressed. Oh yeah, I also had my first observation the first day back after this full week off. Not something I would have planned for myself, but nonetheless, I made it through. That week was rough, but again, I made it through. And things could only get better from there.