On Saturday, October 8, Hurricane Matthew hit North Carolina. This is a fact that I cannot ignore. I cannot post blogs about food and other things I had planned without addressing the fact that I live in an area that is now entering the recovery stage from a natural disaster. The county I live in has been approved for support from FEMA. Our neighboring counties are in the same boat. I know those still without electricity, water, or both. Our communities are dealing with shortages of both fuel and food on top of everything else. When I see the pictures of areas that were hit much worse than my neighborhood, my heart breaks for those families. I am thankful that things were not worse for my family.
Living two hours from the beach and having grown up in Florida I can admit that I may not have taken the threat of the hurricane as serious as I should. Add in the ever changing forecast for Hurricane Matthew who really knew what the hurricane was going to do. The thought in my head was we were far enough away that all we would see would be some rain and wind. Rain, that we didn’t need as we had just had around 10 inches the previous week that had flooded the area. I checked the weather multiple times and decided to proceed with my plans to sweep a half marathon that was an hour and a half away. During that half marathon is when everything began to unravel and I knew I needed to get home before I couldn’t. I think my sweeping partner could tell I was stressing and she sent me ahead to finish early. For that I am grateful. Going home was not a picnic, I could only imagine if I had left later.
It wasn’t too long after I got home we lost power for good and then lost water. My source for info became facebook. I was constantly checking it for new information. Social media is a lifesaver in these situations now, especially when living in a small country that the news forgets about. We had a good grasp of what was going on all around us, our area was getting the brunt of Hurricane Matthew.
When we woke up Sunday morning we were thankful that not only Hurricane Matthew was finally gone but that my family only had to deal with flooding in our yard, blown down fences, lost shingles, and roads that were starting to wash out nearby. Currently, my family has our power and water back and we are waiting to see how much longer we will need to boil water. Our internet has gone down off and on but I think that is to be expected right now, we just had a hurricane after all. We are good when so many others in our community are not. Thank you to all of our guardian angels for protecting us.
Hurricane Matthew while bringing bad to our area also brought good. It not only brought families together and made them closer but it is bringing communities together as we enter the recovery phase. You have perfect strangers helping each other in so many different ways. From neighbors who have never even spoken to each other to people getting out in their communities and doing what they can to help. Our community is starting the road to recovery and we will bounce back from this and be better than ever.
Looking for a way to help those affected by Hurricane Matthew in North Carolina? Please consider donating to the Red Cross .