Hurricane Florence, qualified as a Category 2 storm according to ABC 11, is projected to hit the coast of the Carolinas early Friday morning, although the area will feel the impact of the storm starting Thursday morning. In the meantime, approximately 750,000 to 1 million residents have been requested to evacuate.<\/p>\n
Sophomore Matthew Emlaw, from Charleston, South Carolina, said his family has packed up items of sentimental value and evacuated to stay with family in Oklahoma. Emlaw\u2019s father\u2019s job with the weather service requires that he stay behind, though, to keep people informed of changes in the storm. He will be staying in a bunker-like structure owned by the weather service that is designed to withstand even Category 5 storm wind-speeds, Emlaw said.<\/p>\n
Emlaw said being away from home during the possibility of tragedy is a little stressful.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt kind of makes me nervous, because on the one hand, there\u2019s been a couple hurricanes \u2013 none that I\u2019m aware of that were this bad \u2013 but\u2026 the last time I was there, I was able to grab things that I would worry [about],\u201d Emlaw said. \u201cAnd this time I\u2019m kind of like, \u2018Please don\u2019t hit Charleston,\u2019 because if it does, then there\u2019s a decent chance that I\u2019ll never see some of that stuff again.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sophomore William St. Leger, from Hampstead, North Carolina, lives right on the intercostal waterway, but his family has decided not to evacuate. His family has seen many hurricanes before and most houses on the coast are equipped for storms like this one, St. Leger said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was born and raised in Houston \u2014 lived there for about eight years. I\u2019ve went through hurricanes all of my life, and so you kind of get used to the general procedure of what to do,\u201d St. Leger said. \u201cMy family was considering leaving, but our house is rated for 180-mile-an-hour winds. So it\u2019s special windows, different building materials, stuff like that, so that\u2019s why they ended up staying.\u201d<\/p>\n
Although his house is prepared for the storm, St. Leger said he is concerned about what the rest of his home community may be like when he returns.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m not especially worried just because my family knows what they\u2019re doing, but I am worried in a sense that I don\u2019t know what it\u2019s going to be like when I come back,\u201d St. Leger said. \u201cYa know, your neighbor\u2019s house might get destroyed and they might not move back in at all or they might rebuild in two years. It\u2019s just a general sense of you don\u2019t know what it\u2019s going to be like. Whenever you come back it could be completely transformed.\u201d<\/p>\n
Emlaw said he is worried about the storm, but it is the aftermath that he is most concerned about.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not the storm itself that makes it so hard to stay through storms, it\u2019s surviving the aftermath,\u201d Emlaw said. \u201cIf Category 5 makes landfall like that, it\u2019s just going to be tons of destruction. Tons of people\u2019s homes are going to get destroyed and just hope that it doesn\u2019t come to that.\u201d<\/p>\n
St. Leger said that when it comes to weathering the storm and taking care of your neighbors, it is a community mindset.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou offer anything you can, any extra rooms in your house,\u201d St. Leger said. \u201cIf anything survives in the storm then you move their stuff in my garage. I mean, I know we have three different people we know that their car is in our garage, stuff like that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Although the categorization of the storm has progressively decreased, as well as maximum wind-speed, the anticipated rainfall stays the same, according to ABC 11.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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