Heads on a swivel you folks on Eastern Seaboard. Flo's coming.

[Mike CHS]

I spent most of my life on the Atlantic and Gulf Coast and after more hurricanes than I can remember, so I decided to retire where I was living on the highest elevation around and all water sources were a long way downhill from where I lived.

 

[Simpleterrier]

If my house floods or my foundation moves. It will be the end of times.

 

[Baymule]

The highest elevation in our county is 671 feet. We are not far from there and elevation on our place is right at 600'. May not sound very high to some of you, but I'll take it.

 

[greybeard]

If my house floods or my foundation moves. It will be the end of times.

Lots and lots of people all over the continent and US have said the same thing......or something very close. No matter where ya live, there's always a volcano, or earthquake, or hurricane or tornado, Arquillian Battle Cruiser, or a Corillian Death Ray, or an intergalactic plague that is about to wipe out life on our own miserable part of the world and the only way we get on with our happy little lives is we...don't... know... about it, but if we do find out about it, we have to find someone to blame and get to pay for it. Cha CHING!

http://geosurvey.ohiodnr.gov/earthquakes-ohioseis/quakes-felt-in-ohio/recent-ohio-regional-quakes

 

[Bunnylady]

we have to find someone to blame and get to pay for it. Cha CHING!

Yep. And then we blow it all in a heartbeat and wind up just as happy and just as little, only now, even our families don't talk to us anymore.

Life is about the choices you make. Yes, if I leave a tree standing on my property, it has a chance of falling on anything else within the radius of its length. But if I cut all of the trees down, I lose the chance of meetings like this:

To me, that matters. (Though I must admit, the turtle doesn't look too pleased to have made my acquaintance)

Even without the Arquillians or the Vogons or scheming Slitheen, life throws plenty of hazards our way. The difference is some are large scale and spectacular, while others are one-on-one. Die of a flesh eating bacteria, and you probably won't even make the local news, unless you are a celebrity or it can be tied to something even more celebrated like a hurricane. And as Mark Twain pointed out, there's that hazard that no one talks about, your own bed!

 

[frustratedearthmother]

The highest elevation in our county is 671 feet. We are not far from there and elevation on our place is right at 600'. May not sound very high to some of you, but I'll take it.

Sounds much better than the 30ish feet that I'm at!!! YIKES!

 

[Bunnylady]

Sounds much better than the 30ish feet that I'm at!!! YIKES!

The real question is, what's higher than you? If almost everything, well, yeah, you've got a problem.

When we bought our property, we knew what we were buying (certain very expensive hours in classrooms . . . .). A "swamp on a hill" is still a swamp, at least potentially. We chose the location for the house carefully, and had it built on a 30" foundation (building on a slab is asking for trouble in soil that doesn't "perk"). Yes, we have to climb a few stairs to get into the house, but so would any flood waters. So far, those choices have proven to be the right ones; even Floyd and Florence's colossal rain totals haven't even lapped at the foundations.