Return to Highlands

We returned on Sunday, rain increasing steadily throughout the morning.  Highway officials had closed US-441 due to the possibility of rock slides and falling trees as the expected effects of Hurricane Florence neared the mountains.  We had heard that the campgrounds were going to be evacuated, too.  So we had to return through heavy traffic in Sevierville, and then along that winding stretch of I-40 that we do not like to drive in the best of circumstances.  It was raining, and the road was crammed with tractor-trailers and big RVs, the latter apparently unaccustomed to curves and tunnels.  Martha was driving and it was white knuckles all the way until we exited on US-276 and drove through peaceful Jonathan Creek, and then into Waynesville for lunch while light but steady rain was falling.

But then the rain began to dissipate, and finally to clear, as we drove farther west through Sylva and Cashiers and back to Highlands.  The storm had passed to the east of Asheville, and so we had dodged the proverbial bullet.  Our rain gauge showed a mere one-half inch.

But the East Coast took a direct hit, with heavy damage in Duck, in Atlantic Beach and Morehead City, in Swansboro and New Bern - all the little places we love so much and know so well.  We saw pictures of New Bern swamped with ten feet of water, one of their big painted decorative street bears floating past in the flood.  And images of desperate people who had not heeded the evacuation orders stranded on roofs.  The full extent  of the damage won't be known for weeks, but I heard an estimate of $10 billion on the news today.

We count ourselves fortunate that this wandering storm decided to go stay east of us, and slowly make a lumbering path of destruction in Virginia and farther north.  And we dread seeing what we will find when we return to the East Coast this winter.