While having dinner, the tv over the bar was on the local news channel. Hurricane Matthew was heading up the coast and the governor had called for an evacuation of Charleston at 3:00pm the following day. At that time all freeways would become outbound only. No one was allowed back into the city.
We headed back early to the hotel and started making plans on what to do next that did not involve the tour of the Magnolia Plantation or spending the following night in Savannah, Georgia. But first stop, gas...
Apparently everyone else in Charleston had the exact same idea. The lines were incredible! Cars, trucks, people with extra gas cans. Curling around the building and far out into the street, blocking traffic just to get the last of the premium gasoline they had left. Also the only gas they had left. The next gas station was simply out of gas altogether! As was the next one...
Thankfully, we still had a bit over half a tank left which would hopefully get us far enough out of town until we could get gas. That is if we weren't sitting in traffic for hours. The waiter said the last time this had happened his family sat on the interstate for 14 hours to get up north!
When we got back to the room this was waiting for us...
To Whom It May Concern,
The Governor has declared a State of Emergency and has made it clear that her plan is to evacuate Charleston County. There is a chance that this can change, but at this time we, and the Governor, are treating this as if we are moving forward with the mandatory evacuation.
According to the information we received today,unless things change, a mandatory evacuation will begin at 3:00PM on Wednesday afternoon.
We ask that you prepare for the worst case scenario, and be ready to depart tomorrow morning so that we can make the necessary preparations to ensure that the hotel is secured and all residents and employees have proceeded to the evacuation route.
In other words, get out as soon as possible. That sounded like a good idea to us.
We took showers, packed up our stuff, turned on the news and climbed into bed.
Watching the news we learned that the mandatory evacuation was still on and that emergency preparedness doesn't seem so crazy after all. The grocery store shelves were stripped by 10pm. Stripped. There wasn't even sour cream or coffee creamer. What are people going to do with sour cream? You can't really just eat that. The lines at gas stations that still had gas were insane!
Before going to sleep, we made the decision to get up at 4am and try to beat the rush out of town.
Despite the crack-of-dawn hour, the breakfast buffet was ready and waiting. We were joined with a group of "refugees" from Florida making their way north away from the storm. One mom and her 3 kids were traveling alone, having to leave her husband behind. His job (at a call center) said that if he wasn't at work he wouldn't come back to a job. Yeah, because that's a job worth risking your life for. Ugh!
We got on the freeway and joined the steady stream of traffic heading to the Georgia border. Traffic was tight but moving along at a decent pace. Some cars even had extra gas cans strapped to their bumpers.Traffic going into town consisted of a handful of cars, gasoline tankers (to refuel gas stations), empty tour buses (to take evacuees), and trucks full of outhouses to leave along the sides of the highways (people need to go when they are sitting in traffic for 8+ hours). You just don't think about those things when you live on the west coast.
When we stopped for gas on the other side of the Georgia border, we also stopped at the rest stop/visitor's center to find out about what to do and where to stay until we had to leave. The volunteer said we'd better go all the way to Atlanta (where our flight was leaving from) because the first county over the border was already full up. Wow!
Breakfast at the Waffle House gave us time to start calling hotels. The first two were booked. I prayed while Chris continued to call. The fourth place had rooms! Whew! We had a place to stay...
That seemed like enough adventure for one trip. Thankfully God thought so, too... :)
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