Southern Ice Storm and Hilton Head
First I'll say that we are at Hilton Head right now, not originally by design....Friday night thru Sunday. The reason to follow:
In our hometown of Augusta, GA we suffered a historic ice storm over the past few days. Began Tuesday night, basically ended Thursday midday. We live in a neighborhood with 100+ foot pines, every lot being heavily wooded. All night Wednesday there were horrible cracks, then crashes. Most falling trees missed homes but many hit roofs. Miraculously we took no big hits, only grazed gutters and a few destroyed areas on our wood fence.
Tops of trees, like top 20 feet of these behemoths, broke loose and came crashing down due to weight of ice on the pine needles and limbs. It sounded like Sherman tanks were being dropped from the sky all night long. Never experienced anything like it. My vision during the event was London during WW II. Of course that was far, far worse. Every 30 seconds there were the crashes....then a 2 second delay...then the result, either crash to ground or horrific train wreck into a house. Easy to distinguish.
Next day our neighborhood was a wasteland, and the whole city, too. Power was out all along. Luckily we have 2 gas log fireplaces (for convenience and for potential heat should this ever happen), a gas cooktop, and gas hot water heaters. We slept in our den for the heat. After two very long days and nights, we couldn't take it any longer. We skipped town today and took off for Hilton Head, 2.5 hours away. Used the P33 code and are at Barony OceanSide for 2 nights. Villas with same owner discount were available at Grande Ocean and Surfwatch. Barony was slightly less expensive.
Heat at home should be back on by Saturday or Sunday. So, we are currently enjoying TV, a thermostat that listens, and internet service. I should never take all that for granted. Anyway, thank you Marriott for the owner discount. Amazingly there are many units unoccupied.
OP, hope you made it here to Hilton Head OK....so far no update, but hope you're here safely. It's a GREAT place to be. 60+ degrees today. We had a lovely Valentine's Day dinner at Santa Fe, our favorite spot on the island, as stated in my HH Restaurant Guide. Cowboy Cut Rib Chop was as great as ever.... amazing actually. Had our favorite two-top in back room near Chef's Grill. Oh yeah! Now watching Olympics in villa, resort looks beautiful. Several floors not occupied as suggested by lack of lights on after dark. Pool is all lit up, pretty lights in interior trees, fire pit going, sky lit up with moonlight and nice arrangement of clouds also lit.....just beautiful.
an unexpected visit to HH, but wonderful. Why more people don't avail themselves of the cheap owner rentals and CHEAP DC point visits, I don't know. Lot of difficult yard clean-up when we get home, but tonight? It's Valentines!
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