No, of course not. But a record number of people have been evacuated, and this isn't going to be a top-10 storm for overall damage.
Maybe not, but flooding here on the Eastern Shore is already starting to get bad and this bad girl isn’t supposed to really get here for another 5 hours.
What is making this a “record Number” is bloominidiot in New York and all his evacs.
Because of the estimates of “arrival” falling around a new moon high tide evacs around here are higher than usual when coastal flooding is being called for. The last time I remember Ocean MD being evacuated was 1985 for Gloria. I don’t think Chincoteague was evacked for Isabel, at least not the way it has been this weekend, but I had only lived here a short time and wasn’t as familiar with how to get info back then as I am now.
Other factors possibly influencing the number of evacutations:
= the amount of shoreline affected (consider all the waterfront between Eastern NC and Massachusetts).
= the population density in the areas affected (it doesn't get more dense than the Washington-NYC corridor).
= an increasing tendency for politicians and emergency agencies to order evacuations, compared with years ago (this ultra-careful age we live in).