September 2018

Sounds like it is time for new folks to hear old stories of Hurricane Fran (1996) and get ready for Hurricane Florence (2018). (We were 3 blocks from Franklin St without electricity for 6 days with a 6 month old baby. We used a lot of our backpacking gear. The neighbors, student rental, had 4 cars crushed by trees. We escaped any damage except our landlord spent the next 6 months cutting up for fire wood the oak that fell in our back yard.) The latest headline now says "potentially catastrophic category 4!" I'll put in a plug for the NC Standard Course of Study which includes the high school course of Earth and Environmental Science which I taught (along with biology, chemistry etc.) at the soon to be remodelled Chapel Hill High School. I always warned students when they live on their own to figure out if their rental is in the flood plain. We also talked about hurricane preparedness and the dangers of crossing flooded roads and bridges. I hope the hype for this storm is wrong but....