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Hurricane season approaching
Hurricane Matthew2 011
This file photo from October 2016 shows the destructive capabilities of hurricane-force winds.

Will Bryan County get a visit this year from Cindy, Don or Gert? How about Harvey, Maria or Tammy?

Those are just some of the names chosen for the 2017 hurricane season. The first named storm of the season — Arlene — occurred about a month ago but remained in the central Atlantic Ocean and had no land impact. Forecasters are calling for a total of 14 named storms this year, including seven hurricanes and three major hurricanes. That’s above the 30-year average for the Atlantic.

The official hurricane season begins June 1 and runs through Nov. 30.

Just eight months removed from Hurricane Matthew, Bryan County Emergency Services Chief Freddy Howell has this advice in case another such storm heads our way: “Evacuate, evacuate, evacuate.”

Howell said that is the main take-away after Matthew.

“If the potential is high that one will be close enough to hit us, the best thing to do is to leave,” he said. “Have a plan in place and a place to go.”

Howell added that Hurricane Matthew’s impact on Bryan County could have been much worse.

“We only got brushed, and if it had been at high tide, we’d have had significant flooding,” he said. “

The National Weather Service recommends taking several steps well ahead of time, including reviewing the season’s forecast, understanding evacuation routes and assembling a disaster kit.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency says such a kit should include enough non-perishable food, water and medicine for each person in the family to last one week. You should also include in the kit extra cash (ATM and credit card machines won’t work if the power is out), a battery-powered radio and flashlights. A portable crank or solar powered USB charger can help keep cell phones and laptops functioning.

You can also check with your insurance agent to make sure your property is fully covered. Even if you don’t live in an area of Bryan County that requires flood insurance, you can still purchase a policy through the National Flood Insurance Program. Those policies require a 30-day waiting period before they become effective.

If you decide to stay and ride out the storm, make sure you have the appropriate materials cut to size to board up windows and doors. And if there is a mandatory evacuation and you still choose to stay, be prepared to go it alone as emergency services personnel will not respond to calls during that time.

“If you stay and something happens, there’s no guarantee you’ll even be able to get to a hospital,” Howell said.  

Residents who have functional, access or medical needs that prevent them from evacuating and have no other resources such as friends or family to help them, the Bryan County Health Department offers a registry. Those on the registry would be evacuated to an American Red Cross shelter. People living in nursing homes, assisted living facilities and personal care homes are not eligible for the registry and instead should follow their facility’s evacuation plans. Call (912) 756-2611 for details.

The remainder of the storm names for this year are Bret, Don, Emily, Franklin, Irma, Jose, Katia, Lee, Nate, Ophelia, Philippe, Rina, Sean, Vince and Whitney.

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Later yall, its been fun
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This is among the last pieces I’ll ever write for the Bryan County News.

Friday is my last day with the paper, and come June 1 I’m headed back to my native Michigan.

I moved here in 2015 from the Great Lake State due to my wife’s job. It’s amicable, but she has since moved on to a different life in a different state, and it’s time for me to do the same.

My son Thomas, an RHHS grad as of Saturday, also is headed back to Michigan to play basketball for a small school near Ann Arbor called Concordia University. My daughter, Erin, is in law school at University of Toledo. She had already begun her college volleyball career at Lourdes University in Ohio when we moved down here and had no desire to leave the Midwest.

With both of them and the rest of my family up north, there’s no reason for me to stay here. I haven’t missed winter one bit, but I’m sure I won’t miss the sand gnats, either.

Shortly after we arrived here in 2015, I got a job in communications with a certain art school in Savannah for a few short months. It was both personally and professionally toxic and I’ll leave it at that.

In March 2016 I signed on with the Bryan County News as assistant editor and I’ve loved every minute of it. My “first” newspaper career, in the late 80s and early 90s, was great. But when I left it to work in politics and later with a free-market think tank, I never pictured myself as an ink-stained wretch again.

Like they say, never say never.

During my time here at the News, I’ve covered everything that came along. That’s one big difference between working for a weekly as opposed to a daily paper. Reporters at a daily paper have a “beat” to cover. At a weekly paper like this, you cover … life. Sports, features, government meetings, crime, fundraisers, parades, festivals, successes, failures and everything in between. Oh, and hurricanes. Two of them. I’ll take a winter blizzard over that any day.

Along the way I’ve met a lot of great people. Volunteers, business owners, pastors, students, athletes, teachers, coaches, co-workers, first responders, veterans, soldiers and yes, even some politicians.

And I learned that the same adrenalin rush from covering “breaking news” that I experienced right out of college is still just as exciting nearly 30 years later.

With as much as I’ve written about the population increase and traffic problems, at least for a few short minutes my departure means there will be one less vehicle clogging up local roads. At least until I pass three or four moving vans headed this way as I get on northbound I-95.

The hub-bub over growth here can be humorous, unintentional and ironic all at once. We often get comments on our Facebook page that go something like this: “I’ve lived here for (usually less than five years) and the growth is out of control! We need a moratorium on new construction.”

It’s like people who move into phase I of “Walden Woods” subdivision after all the trees are cleared out and then complain about trees being cut down for phase II.

Bryan County will always hold a special place in my heart and I definitely plan on visiting again someday. My hope is that my boss, Jeff Whitten (one of the best I’ve ever had), will let me continue to be part of the Pembroke Mafia Football League from afar. If the Corleone family could expand to Vegas, there’s no reason the PMFL can’t expand to Michigan.

But the main reason I want to return someday is about that traffic issue. After all, I’ll need to see it with my own eyes before I’ll believe that Highway 144 actually got widened.

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