Editors note: Ryan is covering Hurricane Florence for 1010 WINS digital. Look for his pictures and videos as he travels along the Carolina coast and inland communities. You'll find his daily blogs right here as he shares his experience of covering the storm.
BY RYAN JONES
If Day 1 down in the Coastal Carolina was spent amongst people busy with tasks, decisions, and the crazed gathering of competing and ever-evolving information coming down from governors and weather folks, Day 2 was spent amongst a small sliver of America that, without a doubt, knew it was under seige. With Florence just about knocking at their door, that black mass charging across the Atlantic like an invading army with a beautiful name, the people I spent the day surrounded by in Wilmington knew what they were in for.
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Front Street is the main drag in downtown Wilmington, and when my father and I rolled up in the blinding white chariot that is the Toyota RAV4 it didn't look quite how I expected it to. I mean, I knew it wouldn't be packed to the gills with crazed locals and journalists alike, all reaching for the same sole loaf of bread left in the aisle at the grocery store, but I certainly expected a little chaos. Some brutal traffic maybe, people scrambling to flee the town and head east, north, anywhere but south, before it's too late. Or maybe just Anderson Cooper doing a live broadcast from the middle of the street, eyes cast to the ocean, searching for signs of harsh winds.
Something.
Even in the face of danger, the owners of Recollections Vintage Village on Carolina Beach Road can't resist a good dad joke #HurricaneFlorence #1010WINS #FloAway pic.twitter.com/0t7SQUviAz
— Ryan Jones (@RyanJones229) September 13, 2018
At the hotel in Raleigh this morning everybody's eyes and ears are glued to the news #HurricaneFlorence #1010WINS #FloAway pic.twitter.com/yazKfALprY
— Ryan Jones (@RyanJones229) September 13, 2018
Lexi's a waitress at Bourbon Street, the restaurant in downtown Wilmington covered in plywood painted red with inspirational messages and local shelter info...she came up with the idea and painted the signs because she cares for others. #HurricaneFlorence #1010WINS pic.twitter.com/GTBe9uGZc8
— Ryan Jones (@RyanJones229) September 13, 2018
Moments like this made me realize I was one of the more panicked people in town, and I don't even live here. I talked to other people, too, people who had been left behind by the people with whom they normally share Wilmington. Lexi, a teenage waitress at a popular restaurant in town, had put the plywood over its windows to good use: she painted "PRAY FOR WILMINGTON!!!" on one window, the names of local shelters on another, all in blood-red paint. On the third, a verse from Isaiah. She's riding out the storm with her family at home in Wilmington.
The encounter that stuck with me most from today, though, was with a very tall woman in her mid-twenties. We were walking back to the car when she called out.
"You with the news?"
"Yep."
She came over to us, visibly upset, tears in her eyes, pulling at her long hair. She told us she was new to this area, came from South Dakota, and had let herself get tricked into staying in Wilmington through the hurricane. She didn't want to be interviewed, not by any means, but she had a lot to say.
"Everybody around here says 'Oh, yeah, it's fine, everything's cool, and I listened, and now I'm STUCK!'" she spat, tears starting to flow. "No WAY it's gonna be fine! Now I'm stuck and I got NOWHERE to stay and I don't even have a damned life jacket, I can't even FLOAT!"
Caught up with Linda Robinette outside the makeshift shelter inside Trask Middle School in Wilmington, where she'll be riding out #HurricaneFlorence #1010WINS pic.twitter.com/Iz9EselM9v
— Ryan Jones (@RyanJones229) September 13, 2018
This is who's left in Wilmington, and in all the areas threatened so severely by Hurricane Florence. People who don't have the money to leave, or even a place to stay, along with the people who refuse to run from a storm. At this point, though, it's not in anyone's hands anymore. People who stayed have stayed, and people who fled have fled. Stores are closed, boarded up, and the neighborhoods near the water are so empty you'd think a biblical storm had already blown through.
The time to talk and make choices has come to a close.The only opinion that matters anymore is that of Hurricane Florence.
