BUT…At the time the call had to be made, it was still uncertain how Florence would track. If she had sped up a little, or had come a little more west, Tryon would have been in the weather Wilmington got. Imagine the scenario if they had held the show, and everybody got stuck at the showgrounds for days with no power trapped by high water or mudslides. Would you want to be either the person who had to make that call, or one of the stuck spectators?
I have been in that position. I was coordinator for a USDF Adult Clinic, and Hurricane Dennis was approaching. I did not want people either hauling in to that situation, or driving in to that weather, and even the airport was talking shutting down, so the clinician either wouldn’t be able to get here in the first place, or would be stuck here if they arrived before the storm hit and the airport closed. So I cancelled it. Turned out, Dennis turned, hit Mobile, and we barely got a sprinkle.
But the next hurricane that came this way just a few weeks later? KATRINA. We got hit, and hit hard. I sure wouldn’t have wanted to be responsible for bringing people in to experience that. To illustrate the difficulty of making the call, forecasts were for Katrina to turn, and Saturday was like any other day. No calls were made to even evacuate New Orleans. My farrier was here, and we were saying, “it won’t come here”. Sunday she turned towards us, and hit in the wee hours of Monday morning. I was without power for a month. It was 3 months before my family could returnto their houses in the city, and they didn’t even have damage or flooding.
My SIL’s parents live in Wilmington, and decided not to evacuate, even though we invited them to our house in far western NC. They are now trapped in town, and have been without power for several days.
I would certainly rather be safe than sorry, and don’t blame them a bit for cancelling.
