And good luck to you and yours. Take care of yourself.

Good luck and be careful, please.

Four of them! Yikes. Around here there are a lot of people freaking out, and several insisting they don't need to do anything at all...of course the answer is somewhere in the middle.

Lucky

If you are two hours inland, the only real danger is from flooding; and if you are on a hill, you've got that beat. Best of luck; but power outage will probably be your worst problem.

Yes, please take good care. Please keep us posted. We will be thinking of you.

Mike

lucky_cloud, good luck to you and yours. My daughter at NCSU is going to ride it out because she has no choice. If she came home to GA, there is a possibility she may not get back in time when school reopened due to road closures. Thank goodness she was given a 5th floor apartment instead of a 2nd or 3rd floor.

Would you please give updates with what's happening up there? My daughter up there is the youngest of my three and I am one worried mama.

Regarding your UPS package: if you track your package, there may be someplace you could pick it up a day or two earlier. UPS in not the fastest pony on the track and packages sometimes sit at distribution centers waiting for the next route/truck

Denise, good luck to your daughter and her classmates. I find Twitter is one of the best ways to keep track of weather, especially for family and friends living further away. Try this,

https://twitter.com/NWSRaleigh

Denise, yes, I am sorry she has to stay there. She will be thought of in my prayers. Let us know how she fares too please.

Mike

I will keep you posted as well as I can!

Thank you all. School was cancelled from Wednesday after 5 pm through Sunday. If the storm is as bad as predicted, I think school resuming on Monday is really unrealistic, but we will see. I told my daughter don't count on going back to school on Monday. She was thrilled school was closed as she had a test on Friday. lol.

Expecting a lot of rain and 50-60 mph gusts here in central VA

Wishing everyone in the path good luck and as they say hope for the best but prepare for the worst. Since weather is one of my old hobbies, I am following Florence very closely. The track may shift back and forth the next couple days but as noted, one of the big concerns is rain and some forecasts calling for it to potentially stall either just inland or just off the coast, and then drift like that for a few days (which exasperates things).

I saw one model where possible accumulations of rain totaled 30 inches +. That's just ridiculous. Let's hope that the storm can move on quickly and not stall out.

Oh Denise! You must be so worried for your daughter right now!I wish everyone in Florence path good luck and you all must stay safe!!!

A list with more useful Twitter feeds from meteorologists etc. in the region to help track the progress of Florence,

https://twitter.com/mattlanza/status/1039316082576764929

There are some folks who decided to stay in Myrtle Beach according to the news. I think that is a bad decision. I also saw a Ferris wheel from the board walk there and wondered what the odds were that it would still be there after the storm passed.

I was watching on TV the storm and it's path, praying for the people down there, so they are safe and sound. I hope the people staying know how to be safe in those situations, the forces of nature are unpredictable.

Lucky, be safe down there!

Oh yikes! Good luck to everyone in the path! Couldn't bring myself to "like" the comments from people worried on this thread even as a way of showing support, so adding our positive thoughts to you all!

Seems to be significant uncertainty about the track. So the Carolinas are getting the blanket " everybody get ready" speech. Lines and prices at gas pumps are way up.

Just in case we got some rain or high winds, I grouped all my citrus trees together, put plastic bags on top of the soil and weighted the bags down with bricks. I think the wind and rain will help clean off the leaves of dirt and pests. I just realized as I type this that my fig trees need protection too which are also in containers.

Good luck, lucky_cloud. Hope you and your trees are doing well. I'm dealing with Florence too. We have some serious flooding and our power is still out. I put all my potted citrus under shelters and indoors to protect them.

Thanks calamondindave. Everything is fine here - just wet. We only got moderate winds and so far just mostly showers and drizzle. My trees are under the eaves of my house and doing ok. I am sure they are loving the humidity. Hope you get power back soon, that is no fun.

Glad to hear you are safe lucky!! So sorry for all the others that have had such a terrible time.