Remembering Hurricane Fran (1996), concerned about Florence - our Raleigh experience

[nclib]

10. We were in Raleigh for Fran.

We were living in a split foyer home on about 1/3 of an acre. I invited a family I knew who were living in a mobile home to come shelter with us. (turns out they had no damage) Mr. nclib was out of town and supposed to fly in that night. He was on one of the last planes to land at RDU that night. I believe he got home around midnight.

We all stayed in the basement area during the peak. I remember looking out the window and seeing the pine trees swaying back and forth. Mr. nclib was so tired he fell asleep on the floor even though the basement was flooding. He was laying in a couple of inches of water. I heard trees hitting the house and went upstairs to try to coax our cats downstairs but they were on top of the kitchen cabinets and would not budge.

In the morning, when things calmed down, we went outside to survey the damage and there were trees everywhere. There were trees on the house, the car, a gazebo we had in the back, on the deck. We were lucky though because we had good insurance and were able to remain in our home during repairs.

We were without power for 7 days. We had a gas water heater so we could still take showers. Lots of clean up.

I am so dreading this storm.