September 5, 6, 7, 2017 Hurricane Irma preparation

Sept 5 Tuesday
We are watching hurricane Irma in the Caribbean and it’s possible path up the east coast.  Today we decided to rent a car and move some of our things to a storage unit.  Then we will have our own transportation rather than share a 2 door car with another couple.  And this way we can make our own plans. 

We have friends in Atlanta that are from South Dakota.  They always offer their home to us, so that may be our plan.  Or we will have a vacation weekend somewhere out of the hurricane path. 

Sept 6, Wed
Today, we picked up a Jeep with room to haul some boat items.  We rented an extra storage unit at the same location of our existing one.  We spent the day loading big items, like our Honda generator, our air compressor, and Sailrite sewing machine to name a few.   I also started cooking the food in our freezer.  We plan to turn off the power when we leave.

We decided to go to Helen, GA.  It’s a small German community north of Atlanta in the mountains.  They are starting their Oktoberfest this weekend.  They have a Festhalle with German bands on the weekends in September and everyday in October.  We found a condo through VRBO right in town, walking distance to the festival. 


Sept 7, Thursday
Today Dave took off the solar panels and the canvas (bikini and dodger).  He tied up our 2 dinghies, one on the bow and one on the davits.  We wrapped our outboard motors in contractor garbage bags and tape.  We taped the port holes on the inside and out.  Water can be driven in through the seals, if the wind is strong enough.  Can’t name everything, but we worked pretty hard for a couple days.  Inside, I packed the perishable food to go with us, gave or threw away the rest.  I stuffed towels in the cupboards to keep things from rattling around, especially anything with glass. 

storage unit

The marina had a hurricane preparedness meeting at 6:00pm.  The main thing I learned was that we may need a copy of our marina invoice to prove we have our “home” in the area when we want to return to the marina.  Our driver’s license say Florida.  We left town right after the meeting.

Since all of Florida looked like it was going to be affected by hurricane Irma, we figured the highways were going to get very crowded.  Our county was already determined to be in a state of emergency.  We drove north and west and ended up spending the night in Statesboro, GA about 40 mile west of Savannah.  We found a Wild Wings Cafe near our hotel.  It is our favorite chicken wing restaurant that we discovered in North Carolina.  You don’t see very many of them further south.  While we were there, we saw on the TV that Savannah would be under mandatory evacuation starting Saturday morning.  And Interstate 16 would be on “contraflow”.  That means all 4 lanes will be open to traffic leaving the coast.  This hurricane  business is still new to us.