Blogging Through Hanna

It's 11:30 p.m. and Hanna is close. The winds have picked up here in downtown Charleston while the rain is turning sideways. We realize too late that we forgot to secure our giant plastic city issued trash can, but the winds are only gusting so far at 60ish according to Bill Walsh on the local eleven o'clock news cast. And the big green eyesore is not sitting out in the open.

We walked up to The Piggly Wiggly earlier around eight. Our hurricane, er, tropical storm supply list inadvertently excluded popsicles. The storm was still far off so we ventured out to get a look around and fetch some snacks. Few cars were on the street, but lots of people on foot armed with umbrellas and sporting a wide variety of rain gear, including one guy in the expected trash bag with arm cut-outs. Anyway, we digress.

Hanna is near. The wind has really picked up and one of us here is reporting a popping sensation of the ears. We're now under a flood warning, a flash flood watch (because high tide is scheduled at 12:42 a.m.), a tropical storm warning and a tornado warning. The historic downtown area boasts all of these wonderful old homes. The rain on these old tin roofing systems sounds quite charming, but we can also report being able to clearly hear the wind whistling through the house (oooo, we so need to keep moving forward with the energy efficiency upgrade initiative).

As usual, like all of the other storms we've weathered, Hanna has been coming in bands all afternoon and now as she bears down there is little time between them, meaning the rotation is tighter and the center is closer to us. She's moving fast though and will be gone in a Suthun Minute.

The Weather Channel is reporting Charleston has received 3" of rain, and that Highway 17 is now closed due to a 2' storm surge. So far, though, we don't see any major flooding on our street; however, we live on higher ground, where it exists anyway on the peninsula of lovely Charleston. We still have electricity, otherwise, you'd not be enjoying this publication from within the storm. All looks well, so....

Heading off to sleep now through the brunt of the storm. Charleston has gotten through far worse.