Shopfronts boarded up. Expectations of riots. A climate of fear.
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The voting may be over but the US election is dragging on.
For US citizens living here in Australia, the past few months have been an unsettling time as they've watched from afar while their deeply divided nation heads to the polls.
Jessica Reurich, of Robertson, grew up outside of Seattle in a small town of 150,000. Even there, she said, preparations for violence are being made.
"There's a very strange level of fear, this year particularly, even more than in 2016," said Jessica.
"The shops are being boarded up in case of riots.
"My mother works for Volunteers of America and they've shut down their Hispanic program for a week as they're anticipating racist reactions."
Jessica is married to an Australian and has lived outside the US for 20 years, 16 of those in Toronto, Canada, and the last four in Australia.
She credits her time spent in other countries for altering her views of home.
"Living overseas has been eye-opening for me politically," she said.
"Especially with regard to the health system."
Growing up in a predominantly conservative, Christian family, voting Republican was the expected thing to do.
Jessica herself questioned the nexus between her faith and the right-wing politics while working with largely black populations in government housing in Toronto, but said that this year, her whole family had voted Democrat.
"But in my home town, most of the people I went to school with still live there, they're married to people from school, and they still vote the way they did at 18," she said.
Washington State is home to large Asian and Hispanic populations, with immigration primarily connected to agricultural work and the tech giants that call Seattle home. Racial tensions are in the rise.
"I think that racial tension in the last four years has grown significantly for all minorities," said Jessica.
"A lot of my Asian friends there are concerned that the verbal assaults they see aimed at Hispanics will turn to them next.
"There's been so much racially charged stuff from Trump, they worry they'll be next on the hit list."
Even though Jessica grew up in a house with guns - in fact, her step-father presented her with her own hand gun when she moved out of home at 17 - the kind of violence she sees normalised in the culture now makes her afraid.
Even though Jessica grew up in a house with guns - in fact, her step-father presented her with her own hand gun when she moved out of home at 17 - the kind of violence she sees normalised in the culture now makes her afraid.
"I was terrified by that couple who came out of their house with guns during the Black Lives Matter riots," she said.
"That was taking it up to the next level."
Jessica thinks social media has contributed to deepening antagonism and extremism in the US.
"Social media has 100 per cent exacerbated it," said Jessica.
"You can hide behind a social media presence and there's very little accountability.
"In person, you have to look someone in the eye and see them physically respond - you have that responsibility to them.
"But online, there's no social agreement about levels of acceptability and that has been to the detriment of the whole social construct.
And because you can shout it from your page, there's more permission to do it in public."
Flipping the situation over, Bridget Callaghan is an Australian who now lives in Santa Monica.
Coming from NSW, she can't vote and says she has "an outsider's perspective".
"Generally, the air is tense," said Bridget.
"Everyone is hoping for a fair and democratic election, but the fact that the Republicans are speaking out against mail-in voting, and are already setting the wheels in motion to contest the election results in the Supreme Court, makes it seem unlikely that the Republicans will concede to Biden in the event that he wins."
She said that seeing stores boarded up ahead of election day was "unsettling", and that she would be stocking up in case of unrest.
"We are going to pop down to the grocery store tonight to make sure that we have enough food to spend the rest of the week indoors," she said.
"I dont think it will get that serious, but I want to be prepared.
"If there is one thing that I have learned living here, it is that very unexpected things happen all the time in politics."
