We survived!

Whew! We started getting rain around 8 on Friday morning. The winds didn't pick up until the afternoon and the strongest ones started at 2 am. The rain didn't end until 8 last night. We never lost power, thank goodness, but did lose cable, internet and our home phone. Those were restored by last night. We lost one small pine tree and had some branches/yard debris. I'm glad we were prepared though because you just never know with storms like these. We all were very fortunate that she weakened before she hit the coast. My parents had two transformers near them that actually blew up and exploded; they had to call the fire department during the storm to get the fire out. Around town there are some trees down, a car dealership lost their roof, and some billboards were damaged but other than that all is ok. We ended up with 8 inches of rain and we really needed it. I think that's why the flooding wasn't as bad because the ground around here has been so dry.

We had to go yesterday, once the winds died down some, and check on the beach house. They only let you back on the beach if you have a "sticker" issued by the beach to get back on (only for residents). We had to wait in line and they told us to go straight to the house because the island was still closed. The back and side gutters were ripped off the house and a few shingles were missing but there was no water damage! The tide was unbelievably low; I've never seen it like this before. The wind was raging still down there; almost to the point that it would take your breath away (don't worry Garrett wasn't with us). I had to walk over to the beach side and see what it looked like over there. Everything is very flat. Dunes are still up but the "hills" from the pumped in sand are no more. There were huge, whole conch shells all over the beach (that's rare to find here) and tons of shells. I even managed to find 3 starfish-one was purple and the other 2 were purple and tan. Really cool; I've only found brown ones around here before.

I will say my one huge disappointment with this whole storm was the media coverage. It stunk! Granted I know it's rare for the NE to get storms like this but on Friday when we're in the brunt of it, there's nothing to be found. Everyone was talking about evacuations in NY and the Jersey Shore. I really feel sorry for our Outer Banks neighbors who were completely left out of all talks about what was going on. I know people all over were complaining around here and I hope these big media outlets hear about it!

Thanks for all of your prayers!