Our background: We have been prepping and part of the SurvivalBlog community since 2011. We moved to our bugout location in the summer of 2016, a secluded spot in Middle Georgia. I work full-time at a local bank in a town about 25 minutes away. My husband had total knee replacement surgery several weeks prior to the hurricane, so he was unable to help much. We are in our late 50s/early 60s, respectively.
Back in September 2017 and 2018 we experienced hurricanes with power outages of five days on the first one and three days with the second one. And I grew up on the Mississippi Gulf Coast, so hurricanes are nothing new. I always go into this storm prep mode where I do all my laundry, top off my gas tanks, buy a few extras at the store, etc. This year was different because we had so much going on in our lives. I also want to emphasize that things don’t always happen at the most opportune times! And things don’t always go like you think (or hope) they will.
My storm prep consisted of clearing the porches, deck, yard, gardens, and animal areas of anything that could fly in the wind. I topped off all animal feed and water. However, we had four baby chicks that we had hatched out a few weeks prior, so they were a bit more needy. I had to unhook their heat lamp, gather up the extension cords and give them a pep talk. They were in a rabbit cage inside of a small covered coop to protect them from snakes, this would turn out to be the safest place to keep them from drowning.
Overnight Wednesday, September 25th to Thursday morning, September 26th, we experienced a storm unrelated to the hurricane that measured over 5 inches of rain by 7 am. It continued to rain most of the day stopping in the late afternoon. The hurricane was forecast to go west of us (more towards Atlanta), so we were most concerned about wind. And with good reason, it would turn out.
I had run to the store on my lunch break Wednesday and had planned to get gas after work on Thursday. Best laid plans, because the gas stations decided to close at 5 pm – the same time most people, including me, get off work. We have three vehicles and I was in our Subaru that had about half a tank. My car at the house was full and our truck (which hadn’t been driven much since my husband’s surgery) had half a tank. Upon my arrival home Thursday evening, I baked a quiche, whipped up some pimiento cheese, and some overnight oats – easy things to eat. I also finished up some last-minute laundry and filled a few extra bottles with water.
I do want to add here that I had tried to coach some of my co-workers to prep for the storm. Not sure how much good it did – but I tried. Most people had that normalcy bias that it would probably be a big ole nothing burger. The normalcy bias did actually penetrate the prepping community too – those folks will remain unnamed.
As the evening progressed, we showered and kept tabs on the weather. For those who are unaware, Middle Georgia is the land of pines, lots and lots of timber in this area. We determined that pine trees can take up to 60 mph winds and those closest to the house were on the side with our bedroom. When we went to bed, we set an alarm to get up around 1 am and move to the great room. My husband got up with his alarm and left me to rest while he checked the weather. At 1:48 am, Friday, September 27th, he woke me to leave the bedroom. We had staged our clothes, wallet/purse, shoes, flashlights at the ready in the great room, just in case. Our phones were charged up as well.
We dozed off/on while watching The Weather Channel for about an hour, as the winds began to ramp up. By 3:05 am the power began the flicker and the lights went off for good at 3:28 am.
Power Background – shortly after the 2017 hurricane, our solar system was installed: 20 panels and a Tesla Wall battery bank. It has worked great for us over the years through all the occasional power outages that come with living in the country. However, here comes the timing part of calamity, we had recently gotten the much acclaimed “rural broadband” to our area and had not yet linked up the power system to this new communication. So, there was no communication to the system that a storm was approaching. Without this communication, it was not put into emergency mode where it tops the battery first and keeps it full until the power goes out. Typically, the system charges each day, sells excess back to the power company, and discharges overnight then starts over each day, beginning with about a 20% charge.
The Height of the Storm
What transpired between 3 am and 5:30 am was the most horrific storm that I have ever lived through. The wind was so strong and loud – it was ferocious. It was like a pent-up anger let loose on humanity. I started to pray for God’s mercy. I checked on friends. Everyone was awake and frightened.
The first snap/crack/thud we heard was a tree out front that fell onto the chicken coop and rabbit hutch. Thankfully it was on the small side and was just sitting on top of the structure. Because we had solar power, I was able to turn on our flood lights, shine a flashlight outside and see a lot in the darkness from my front door. It was frightening the strength that I was witnessing. I had never seen our trees move like that and it concerned me greatly. Thinking to myself, how much can they take? We could hear these weird booms or thumps, almost like a quick thunder. In the darkness, your imagination just runs wild. And I began to pray more earnestly for the Lord to calm the winds and show us mercy.
As we monitored the weather on our phones, we could see that we were going to be on the eastern edge of the eye of the storm. About that time, we heard more loud cracking and booming. I told my husband that whatever that was had hit the side of the house. I was able to take a quick look outside from our porch and from our bedroom window to confirm a tree had fallen. It was on the propane tank and possibly leaning up against the house. While I was coming back in the house, I scanned the flashlight across the front yard, ending at our driveway where I saw two giant root balls. I knew then that we had numerous trees down on our long driveway and they were all on the power lines. Not a minute or two later, a second tree fell in the same area – now we had two trees across the propane tank and up against the house. I was having a bit of a freak-out moment thinking, we aren’t even halfway through the storm!
The eye was fast approaching and I told my husband that usually you get a calm – like a breather. At least it would calm down, I kept saying. But that really didn’t happen. It calmed some but not what I had expected. It was moving so fast that all it did was shift gears and shift direction. This change moved stuff on the back porch and caused new noises to worry about. We could hear more thumps, bumps, and cracks. And I started back praying, over and over for the Lord to please calm the winds. We were exhausted and after a bit we started dozing off. We awoke to stillness in the house, the wind still blowing but nowhere near what it had been. Our battery was dead on our power system and darkness still loomed. It was 6 am Friday morning, we had survived, the house had survived, and we awaited daybreak.
It was still windy with light rain when daylight began to show the damage that was left behind by Hurricane Helene. Cell service was spotty, so communication was limited. However, our rural broadband was still working much to our surprise. But that was short-lived, that too was gone by 6 pm that evening.
I threw on my raincoat, slipped into my rainboots and went out to survey the damage. It was a breathtaking amount of damage to trees. Only from Hurricane Katrina had I seen that kind of damage. I worried as I walked around because the wind was still causing pine trees to sway, creak, and crack. It didn’t seem like it would take much to bring more crashing down.
(To be concluded tomorrow, in Part 2.)