Bonnie and Charley

What do you do when there is a tropical storm with a hurricane right behind it?
Right!- Head for your mobile home where you will be safe!
Friday morning, I got an email from the Lake Gaston Association saying that Dominion was dropping the lake level in preparation for the rainfall. The drawdown was to start at 12 noon so I left work to secure the pontoons at the lake. If you don't loosen the dock ropes, you can pull an anchor through your deck or pull a pier up. So we got down Friday afternoon and battened down the hatches. The remnants of Bonnie had run up against a cold front coming over the mountains and spawned some nasty t-storms, a few of them tornadic. We got popped about 7pm and lost power, cable, and telephone. I hooked up the generator, so we at least had lights, refigeration and the Grateful Dead, Soldier Field '92 on the iPod. Robin and Lisa got into the wine, I got into the Early Times. Had to have a hurricane party, right? Saturday morn comes around and my hair hurts. I hadn't had bourbon like that since starting South Beach. We got power back during the night and cable and phone were back Sat morn. I had the hurricane net on the ham radio (14.325 USB), the hurricane net on Echolink (VOIP internet radio), RSS feed from National Hurricane Center, NWS on the VHF handheld and the Weather Channel on cable.
Can't have too much information. Charley comes ashore about noon, and initially it looked like it was coming right through here. Luckily, it took an eastern track so we had heavy rain and no wind. Over 4'' rain between 5pm Friday and 1pm Sunday and it is still raining as I write this. A good weekend to hunker down and watch the Olympics. I did try and get a ride in this morning. It wasn't raining when I left, so I decided to try the Lizzard Creek option. At the decision point in Gasburg, I went ahead with my choice. As soon as I did so, it began a steady soaking rain. Oh well, a work-out and a shower in one.