Weather Update: Ian Could Knock Us Out For A Few Days

What North Carolina is likely to get out of Ian is nothing compared to what Florida got, and perhaps parts of South Carolina too.

But it could still be a problem: Duke Power sent out a text blast today warning people to expect power outages and they might not be over quickly either.

We’ve been this way before. When Hurricane Fran plowed through Raleigh in 1996, it knocked us offline for days. We got back on because work was up - home took a couple of weeks.

This won’t be anything like that - at least it shouldn’t be - but it could knock us out for a day or three so we thought we ought to mention it.

If that’s the case, we will try to say something on Twitter.

For anyone who is in Florida and affected, it may be a while before you see this but we hope you understand that a lot of people are thinking about you and organizing help in many different ways. No doubt the Cajun Navy is on the way.

In 1996, the physical and psychological damage from Fran were really hard to deal with. You went to bed when the sun went down and there was no air conditioning, no hot water, no gas, and no grocery store to shop in.

We were screwed, short term anyway, spun back to the early 19th century, but without any of the things that allowed people to function reasonably well: oil lamps. Livestock. A large supply of dry goods.

So imagine how it felt when you could finally get out and heading West on I-40 and seeing an endless convoy of utility trucks rolling in from all over the country.

That’s on the way, Florida. It won’t be easy to get through this, but you’ll see soon: you’re not in it alone. Help is coming.