Hey,,,Been skimmin’ back through the posts,,,
JMHO,,,
All that lumber/people/etc. must have gone out to sea,,,
Fact,,,
Those poles that were sheared off were 10’+ in the ground.
Set in concrete,,,6” slab under the beach-house to park
boats and had the showers to keep sand out of the house,,,
Those were 30’ poles 10’ deep,,,10’+ space under the house
that went all the way to the top plate(10’?+-) = 30’,,,
Ain’t been there since 65’ but that’s IIRC,,,
You did your homework well...
From the overheads, you see two main debris vectors.
The main one, heavy construction debris, timbers, walls, sections of roof, down to bits and pieces, runs generally northwest. Specifically between 45 degrees and 63.5 degrees clockwise from the main road through Gilchrist. 290.1 through 310.3 degrees magnetic when transferred to a map.
Most failures were a product of surge damage, rather than wind. You see this because there’s a direct correlation between damage levels and elevation, the higher a location was above sea level, the lesser the damage to structures. It can go the other way, if the winds are strong enough and did from time to time in this storm, but the primary failure mode was from surge.
That indicates to me that the Gilchrist structures failed early in the storm, as the eyewall approached and pushed enough wave and water action ashore to exceed design and material limits.
Later in the storm, or after the storm it’s difficult to tell, you see the other main debris vector, fill transport. The sand was pushed southeast and left easily definable trails as that happened. Could have been the rear eyewall as the storm moved ashore, or if could have been up to days after the storm as surge impounded against the shore was released to course back over the barrier islands to the sea.
It’s an assumption, but a defensible one, that people were hunkered down in shelters and didn’t leave until the ocean ripped open ther structure and forced exit, IF anyone was still there by that time. Historical accounts cover this pretty well. Since the secondary debris vector involves small particulates, generally, and the primary debris vector holds true for larger and heavier debris, I expect to find any concentrations of bodies northwest of the damage areas, specifically on the shore east of Smith Point and south of Robinson Lake.
I also suspect the Robinson Gas Plant sustained heavy damage to a pipeline, storage facility or wellhead, and produced the “oil” slick visible in many of the images. That may still be leaking.