We Didn't Float Away!

The tropical storm that has been racking the Eastern coast has finally cleared out. It left us with cooler temperatures, but that's the only good thing it brought! We had our friends from Morehead City over the other night, and their car broke down while here. Jason let them take his car home, and he got his car fixed, so we met halfway between our houses to switch cars back out. This was a bad idea to try doing this last night, on the worst night of the storm, considering it had been raining for 4 days straight. By the end of it last night, we had gotten 19.19 inches total!!! Roads were closing everywhere, and we found ourselves stuck on the other side of town, unable to get home due to the closing of Hwy. 24. We couldn't even go back through base, they shut it down, in some spots the water had risen to the bottom of stop signs! We finally decided to wind our way back to Emerald Isle and hit a highway there that takes us back to another main highway that would lead us home...about an hour and a half trip. The first road was 58. It was dark, curvy, and unfamiliar. We thought we were ok, as we weren't running into much standing water, when all of the sudden we came up on water rushing across the highway and into a large ditch, creating a pool of water, and a waterfall-like effect. Jason did wonderfully at keeping us from dying. The water took us across the road, and onto the shoulder of the oncoming lane. He got us stopped right before we slid off the road and into the watery ditch. We would have really been in trouble then. And then, the car died. We were praying it would start back, and that we hadn't just completely messed up the engine. After about 6 or 7 tries, it finally turned over, and we got back on the road. It took about 20 minutes for the car to finally get rid of all the water it sucked up, but thank heavens it did! We had several close calls on that road, but none as bad as that one. We truly believe we had been sent an angel to ride with us last night. The outcome could have been so much worse in so many ways. We finally made it to Hwy. 17 and it was alot more easy-going from there on. Our friends, Rachel and Jimi, weren't so lucky. Their car did the same thing, but it never started running normally again. The road they were on got closed, and no tow truck could get to them. The water was rushing across the road there so badly, they couldn't go home until 4 am. They have to put the car in the shop today. To give you a little idea of what we had to face last night, I took a few (not so good) pictures from my phone. This is before it got dark, and before it got even worse and they closed the roads.

We are just thankful that it's over, and that it wasn't any worse.  The house didn't flood, and we haven't found any leaks yet.  It was so much worse for so many others.  We saw emergency crews out by the dozens last night, and I know alot of people had to leave their homes due to flooding.  I just hope we won't have anything like this again for a long time!  Too bad I couldn't get any good pictures of the sound in Swansboro, the water there had completely covered the docks and had risen to the base of the houses.  It was scary!  We were told that in a nearby town, a car had been swept off the road by the waters and into a ditch, where the four people drowned.  This was no joke, and I am so thankful today that we are safe.  We need to keep those families in our prayers that weren't as fortunate.