I’m doing my exchange studies in Raleigh, North Carolina which is in the east coast of the United States. North Carolina is a diverse state: going from east to west, you will travel from beach to mountains and there is everything in between. Raleigh is located inland. Nevertheless, my postcard is about hurricanes and how I experienced them!
You have probably heard news about the two destructive hurricanes that took place this fall. Due the unusually warm summer, America’s east coast has unfortunately faced two disastrous hurricanes that also had an effect to the town where I’m studying. Hurricane Florence struck in the mid-September and hurricane Michael struck in the mid-October. Both left behind aftermath of deaths and destroyed homes and buildings.
September 14, Florence made landfall in the North Carolina, and weakened further as it slowly moved inland. The State was early alarmed, and people started to prepare. Schools were closed, stores ran out of water, people were evacuated. It was forecast to hit the cost on Friday evening. North Carolina State University was closed on Wednesday till Monday. Students went back to their homes, buildings were secured with bags of sand, trees and branches were cut. Rental bikes and all the small loose things were removed from the streets.
When it finally struck after all the preparations, the hurricane had weakened to category 1. We were so far inland and survived from the biggest damage, however we had heavy raining and wind for a few days. Which felt like eternity for someone who was in the dorm the whole time. They threw a hurricane party across the street from my apartment, just that students that didn’t left town, could enjoy the extra vacation together. Basically, the time was spent watching Netflix, going to the gym, hanging out with friends and doing some homework. So we had a lot of fun. Luckily in my area there weren’t power outages and nothing more than a few fallen trees and small flooding on the streets. We got back to school on Tuesday and we needed to catch up the studies.
In the mid-August hurricane Michael did great damage to Florida and Central America. It moved up with heavy rain and wind. When Hurricane Michael struck, I wasn’t even aware of that we would be affected. School wasn’t closed, or classes weren’t cancelled. It was normal Thursday with a cloudy morning. I went to a class and during that, the skies broke. It was a lot of rain and the wind just blew the rain from every possible direction. I was wearing a rain jacket and umbrella which both had no use. It just wettened everything. My shoes were like sponges and my backpack with all my stuff got wet on my 500-meter way from school to library. I had to dry everything and pack my stuff into plastic bags before heading home. It rained the whole day and night, but it went over fast. The next morning was sunny and beautiful. It caused small flooding and few fallen trees and branches. For me hurricane Michael was worse.
People asked me if there were hurricanes in Finland and I always answered that we certainly do not have them. I experienced two Hurricanes in just a small period of time which is rare to even have that many hurricanes. It is a cultural experience that I don’t need to face in Finland. We were lucky to only get heavy wind and rain.
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