Latest on Hurricane Florence [ulog #5]

Tropical Storm Florence is still in existence, but not causing much trouble since being downgraded from "hurricane" status.

^{• SCREENSHOT FROM sarkarinaukripark.com •}

Yesterday (Saturday) was the diciest day here, with only a smattering of rain (not much!) but increasingly-stronger winds as the day progressed. Late last night and into the wee-hours of the morning, we had strong wind-gusts up to 50 MPH (80 kph) here, which kept blowing my front-door open until I finally slid a heavy piece of furniture against the door. 😬 There are quite a few limbs on the roof and the property, but nothing larger than the diameter of my arm. And my electricity held all-through, thankfully!

At once point yesterday afternoon, the wind blew a juvenile squirrel out of a tree and he hit the ground with a thud just a few feet from the house. I thought it had died, but it was gone a short while later, so it must have only been dazed... amazingly!

At present, the storm is about 40 miles (64 km) southeast of me and heading in this direction. Because of the counter-clockwise spin of the storm, though, more rain will be funneled to the north and northeast of me than at my location.

The folks along the coast of North Carolina and South Carolina fared worse, though... Here are a couple of photos from BusinessInsider.com, that shows (L) an awning over a gas station that was toppled by the winds in Topsail Beach, NC, and (B) residents in New Bern, NC, wading through water in their neighborhood. Had the storm not waned to Category-2 before making landfall, the flooding and wnd damage would have been worse and more widespread. Those of us whoo don't live near the coast were quite lucky that the storm waned and slowed-down when it did!

A very odd and disconcerting observation was the number of people on Discord and the Steem blockchain that were in denial about the storm, stating that is was nothing but "hype" by the government and media to instill a sense-of-fear into the ignorant masses. 🙄 I think those people need to go back to Facebook, where they will be in good company.