Posted on 09/19/2003 8:28:30 AM PDT by Diddle E. Squat
Edited on 04/13/2004 1:41:10 AM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
A combo picture taken before Hurricane Isabel on September 17, 2003 (TOP) and just after the Hurricane passed on September 18 shows the destruction of highway 12 on the outer banks of North Carolina. Hurricane Isabel screamed ashore in North Carolina on Thursday with furious winds and torrential rains that forced evacuations throughout the U.S. mid-Atlantic region, canceled nearly 1,000 flights and shut down the federal government in Washington. REUTERS/Jason Reed
Pretty typical for my neighborhood. A couple miles down the road wasn't too bad. I have generator running, so I can do the essentials!
Power is off everywhere (except the chinese restaraunts....generators! The line is out the door...)
Reminds me of 'A Christmas Story', dag burned no good Hurricane Bumpus Hounds...
Glad to know everyone is safe.
At Arlington National Cemetery, soldiers who guard the Tomb of the Unknowns were given -- for the first time ever -- permission to abandon their posts and seek shelter, Superintendent John Metzler said. But they stood guard anyhow.
Bump.
I live in Tidewater area of Virginia...
HARLOWE, N.C. -- About 400,000 houses and businesses in North Carolina remained without power Friday morning a day after Hurricane Isabel turned north, leaving flooding, snapped trees and some relief in its wake.
Most of the damage was in the northeast corner of the state and on the central coast, including tiny Harlowe in Carteret County, where homes were destroyed and entire communities lost power.
Three people died in North Carolina: A utility worker near Newport was electrocuted, a man drove into a downed tree in Franklin County on Thursday night and a person died in Chowan County, where a tree fell on a car.
A storm-tossed tree fell into a natural gas substation in Hertford County, breaking a valve and causing a leak that continued through Friday morning, the county emergency management office said.
Brooks Stalnaker, 72, and his wife, Carole Frances, watched flood waters flatten their home in Harlowe on Thursday afternoon.
"It kind of looks like they misplaced the bomb for Saddam and dropped it here," Brooks Stalnaker said Friday. "We just got totaled."
The couple stayed with neighbors on higher ground, but saw the storm surge come toward their home.
"The water was banging against the center pane (window panes) and I told my wife, 'It can't take much more of this,' Brooks Stalnaker said. "About 10 minutes later, she started crying and said, 'Oh my God, there it goes.' We saw it go. It looked like it just collapsed within."
Much of Elizabeth City remained without power Friday morning while up to four feet of water stood in parts of town. Emergency officials estimated that Isabel's winds caused severe damage to 75 percent of residential properties.
About an hour east on the Outer Banks, N.C. 12 remained impassable from Kitty Hawk to Hatteras. The main thoroughfare for the barrier island chain was covered with sand, debris and downed power lines.
The highway was breached for as much as a half-mile north of Hatteras Village, said Tom Midgett, a realtor on the island. He said damage there was extensive.
"There's houses out in the middle of the bay," he said. "You cannot leave Hatteras Village."
Midgett said the storm surge "created craters or sinkholes that gobbled up whole buildings in some places."
Coast Guard Petty Officer Shane Heagy said portions of the road near Oregon Inlet had as much as 8 inches of standing water Friday morning.
The road on either side of a bridge on the north end of Ocracoke Island had been cut through by the ocean.
"The bridge is still standing, but there's probably 15-foot craters on both sides where it washed out," said Andy O'Neal. He said power is still out on the village but water service returned Friday morning.
The 540-foot Jennette's Pier in Nags Head, most of the Kitty Hawk Pier and at least two beach houses were destroyed on the northern end of the Outer Banks, where storm surge picked up a washer, dryer and refrigerator and carried them about 500 feet down the street. A curfew was imposed on the barrier island chain until noon Friday.
Renee Hoffman, a spokeswoman for the state Department of Crime Control and Public Safety, said the state would begin a detailed assessment of the damage Tuesday. The state had no damage estimates Friday.
"The issues right now are public health and safety," she said.
Bryant Brooks of Dominion Power said 95 percent the company's customers lost service, and in some areas, the entire system must be rebuilt.
Bertie County manager Zee Lamb said every road out of the county had been blocked by fallen trees. Crews were in the final stages Friday morning of clearing U.S. 13 between Windsor and Ahoskie, he said.
Most of the county remained without power and hundreds of homes there had been damaged by trees, he said.
"There's no power in the county unless you have a generator. They're telling us it will be as much as two weeks before it's back on. We're hoping that's a worst-case scenario," he said.
Cleanup efforts started early on Roanoke Island near the Outer Banks.
David Dalton, 42, pastor of Wanchese Assembly of God, worked in front of his brick house Friday morning while water 2-feet deep stood in his yard.
"Everybody's self-sufficient around here," he said. He said he planned to help older parishioners clean up "if I can get my hands on a saw."
Bob Cowden, 60, of Oriental, sorted through the soggy items he had tried to protect in his basement. The 4 1/2-foot sawhorses he stacked them on turned out to be about a foot too short.
"I was telling my wife, 'We pay for this view,'" Cowden said as he looked out over Neuse River. "Clean it up, put it in the trash and go again."
The eye of the storm swept over the coast near Core Banks about noon with 100 mph winds and a load of rain. It moved northwest toward Halifax County before moving into Virginia.
Bob Dorrman, a boat builder who lives in Harlowe, spent Friday morning cutting away vinyl siding ripped from the side of his house. He also tinkered with two cars in his driveway that wouldn't start after water submerged their engines.
"And look at it today," he said on the clear, calm morning. "It's like God's apologizing. Well, too late, dude."
About 60 miles to the northwest, Kinston was among the cities hit hardest by Floyd four years ago. Flooded churches and businesses had to rebuild. Many residents sold their flood-prone homes in a government buyout.
The stretch of U.S. 70 running through Kinston had water so deep "we had fish swimming across," said Lenoir County Sheriff W.E. Smith. "We got lucky this time."
Princeville was another North Carolina town where many residents lost their homes to Floyd. One of them was Lossie Knight, who sat with her daughter, Angela Sherrod, Thursday night with her screen door open to let in the remnants of Isabel's winds.
"Most of the residents are opening their doors, looking out the windows to see what's happening," Sherrod said. "We've had a much better time of it."
We saw an empty lot in Great Falls with a sign, "Free Firewood!" and trucks dumping wood, and other trucks picking up wood.
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