Hurricane Irene's Effect on Carolinas & New England
Fellow Travelers:
At present, Hurricane Irene shows a forecast track which could affect Eastern Seaboard travel from Friday August 26 through Sunday August 29, possibly into Monday the 30th.
I suggest watching the National Hurricane Center's website for the several times per day updates, generally at 11 and 5 in both the morning nighttime hours. Of considerable value there are the "wind field" forecast maps, as they give the probabilities of a particular location's likelihood of experiencing damaging winds, which in turns tends to predict falling trees and power outages.
For those of us in central and eastern NC and VA, this looks ominous. Be ready. I bought two new chains for my chainsaw this morning and I test-fired my generator last night. I'll be purchasing propane and gasoline by Thursday & Friday if the present track forecast doesn't change. We were without power for 9 days after Hurricane Fran in 1996 and for 11 days after the 2002 ice storm. It's much more bearable with some minimal amount of electricity (TV, radio, refrigerator, a few lights), and cooking fuel.
Foy
Labor Day clean-up -- Oh fun!
Foy,
I've been tracking it and watching the winds aloft... This could get interesting.
Sounds like you're well on the path of being ready.
If Irene comes ashore, we will look forward to any posts you can make (assuming you can keep the power on!).
Mark
Cool page, Mark, not that I need ANOTHER page to glance at daily........
......but I guess I'll just have to.
CNN now reporting 5.9 consistently where they'd reported 5.8-6.0 previously. The North Anna Nuclear Power Plant, built in the early 1970s, is 20 miles north of the shallow epicenter, and CNN reports they're shut down as a safety precaution.
I haven't seen Jane Fonda, Michael Douglas, or Jack Lemmon running around yet, so I don't suppose it's risen to a "China Syndrome" level of severity, but that's the strongest quake I recall hearing of in these parts, at least the strongest I recall hearing of since the East Coast benchmark, the estimated 7.3 quake near Charleston, SC in 1888.
Foy
If not for prior efforts, now IS the time, but......
Quote:
Originally Posted by
glc
Foy, I think you should get up there and get boarded up NOW - so you can get in, get your materials, get it done, and get out while you can!
Thanks guys,
The board-up materials are neatly stored in the garage, right down to the Tapcon anchors and drywall screws, affixed to the lumber in big Ziploc bags. All we need to board up is two sets of windows on the Bay side, the side which is oriented due north. I even marked the plywood in "1,2,3" fashion for ease of re-assembly before I took it down following Hurricane Isabel in 2003. I don't think I've got more than 2-2.5 hours of effort for 2 old men (one of whom is me) to have the whole thing up, the refrigerator emptied, the power cut-off, and the deck and yard cleared of future missles. This ain't our first rodeo.
The forecast is looking better and better for Va Beach in terms of storm tracking, but the arrival of the wind field and passing of the eye is now moved up several hours. Still, I'm confident that the plan to arrive by 4pm Friday will allow for full prep, a visit with the neighbors, a decent night's sleep, and to be on the road back to NC by 0600 Saturday. The Lower Bay area should start getting windy fairly early in the day Saturday, and we'll be long gone.
I do need to look in to the corrugated "quick mount" shutters, however. They'd be up in 30 minutes, or less. They're a little spendy, however.
Foy
I appreciate that, and.........
.......as of 3 hours ago I altered my plans to leave at 0600 tomorrow morning. We should arrive and be done in time to bug out by shortly after noon tomorrow.
Thanks for the advice!
Foy
Ohhh, this is going the WRONG WAY!
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Southwest Dave
Foy.
I have been following the news from this side of water, and although I have nothing useful to add, I would just like to say Good luck and I hope it all works out well for you and the property. [And of course everyone else who sits in Irene's path]
[Fingers crossed] Dave.
The 11 am forecast has shifted the axis of the track a bit to the WEST, whereas it's been shifting EAST since Monday. I'm now shutting down the office computer and headed home to get the truck ready for departure THIS AFTERNOON, so hopefully we can get back out of town by early tomorrow morning, before Va Beach declares an evacuation order, which they may do at any time. All but the southwesternmost counties on the NC coast have already declared evacuation orders. Virginia is, as noted by George, under a state of emergency, and an evacuation order is currently under consideration. There are but 3 routes out of the City of Virginia Beach, all 3 involve bridges or bridge-tunnels, and all 3 bridges/bridge-tunnels are but 2 lanes in each direction. The great majority of tourist traffic exiting the NC Outer Banks comes in to the city of Chesapeake, next door to the City of Va Beach and just inside of the US 64 bridge over the Elizabeth River, where it would merge with my vector back home, so traffic bedlam might be expected if evacuation orders are issued for Va Beach tonight or tomorrow.
Yikes!
Foy
Easy trip Thursday evening, no anticipation of problems leaving today
We're boarded up with the obligatory slogan spray-painted on the plywood. In 2003 it was "Bite Me Isabel" and this year it's "Good Night Irene".
Only the Sandbridge section of the City of Virginia Beach and a few particularly low-lying areas in Norfolk and elsewhere in Tidewater are under evacuation orders. We're not anticipating any problems getting back out of here.
Very little traffic encountered last night but it was clear that some of our fellow travelers were headed north from shortened vacations along the NC coast. We're going to hang around another hour or two to help some neighbors move furniture, etc from their lower floors, then we'll hie back to NC, where our position some 160-175 miles from the centerline of the track should leave us unscathed by Irene.
More later,
Foy
Android Phone: Mobile FEMA reporting app
Preparation in New England
I felt the earthquake - I was in a meeting and the room was shaking. A bit disconcerting, but we got lucky with that.
We're getting ready up here as well; having a couple more days than our friends in the South is helpful. A very wet summer means that we are watching for trees falling over more easily, since the ground is saturated. That and the June tornado cleanup is still continuing, along with that from a strong July storm. A tree fell on I-91 Thursday near the CT-MA line; it was not a windy day.
The latest forecast I had seen was for 70mph winds and up to 15 inches of rain here in MA.
Good luck to everybody in the path of this storm - stay safe!
Exodus from Outer Banks and Tidewater, VA
A little past 2pm yesterday had us on the road west and south back to NC. At the point at which NC and VA 168-the primary exit routes north from the Outer Banks, ties in to the I-64/I-664 loop in Chesapeake, VA- gridlock began. From that point and around both the I-64 route across the Hampton-Roads Bridge-Tunnel (HRBT) and the I-664 route across Monitor & Merrimac Bridge-Tunnel (MMBT), traffic was stop and roll all afternoon according to the local FM radio stations and our own observations. The geography of coastal rivers and swamps requires us to reach the western side of Suffolk, VA before any alternate routes are available, and the 5 stoplights in Suffolk created a 6 mile stop and roll. The local police were belatedly setting up to direct traffic through the lights as we cleared town. It took us 2 hours to reach VA 189 west of Suffolk, normally a 45-55 minute drive from the beach house.
At that point we'd had it with the rolling traffic jam, although moving along between 40-50 mph by then, so we connected to US 258 at Beale's Corner and bushwhacked southwest to US 158 at Murfreesboro, NC, then kept 158 to old US 301 near Weldon, NC. Traffic was, as I predicted, not an issue whatsoever once we got off of US 58 west of Suffolk. On old 301 we crossed the Roanoke River, had a massive buffet-style supper at Ralph's BBQ in Roanoke Rapids, got a large cup of black coffee to go, and enjoyed light southbound traffic on I-95 to US 64 at Rocky Mount, NC. Turning west towards Raleigh, we encountered fairly heavy traffic fleeing the Outer Banks, where US 64 terminates at Nag's Head, but we managed to run the 70 mph speed limit all the way in. We saw two long convoys of out-of-state utility company crews northbound as well as flatbed after flatbed with trailer-mounted generators loaded up.
Farther north, radio stations reported 20-30 mile back-ups on I-95 north of Richmond, where much of the vacation traffic from the Outer Banks was headed, and our friends in the Baltimore and Annapolis, MD area reported gridlock across their region.
A cold bottle of Bud, a pillow, and 9 hours of sleep followed. The 9 hours was but one hour short of what I'd had in the 3 previous nights combined.
The lesson here is long-term planning. I think a sound approach is taking the predicted passing of the eye at a given location, backing that up, say, 6 hours for wiggle room, then backing 30-36 hours and setting up one's bug-out time at that point is good practice for many NC and VA coastal locales. We hesitate to move that quickly, however, as we don't want to go through the physically demanding and expensive processes of boarding up, dumping the refrigerator/freezer contents, and such unless absolutely necessary. Our little exercise alone cost about $300 in diesel fuel, materials, ice, bottled water, and nonperishable food.
We're getting just a spot of rain and some blustery winds in Raleigh now (10:30am Saturday) and the radar shows us right on the westernmost edge of the storm. I expect the sun to break out later today.
Best of luck to all north along I-95 and all points east of it. You're in for a meteorological condition known as a "butt-kicking".
Foy
Water west still has to go east
Tim and Foy,
Thanks for the reports.
Congrats to Tim on moving to your new house and glad to hear that you had little damage.
One thing to keep in mind, all of that flood water west of I-95 will be headed east and south!
Mark
A new thread seems appropriate
Quote:
Originally Posted by
glc
I don't know if we want to make this a separate thread, but for the foreseeable future, Outer Banks access is going to be quite limited. Hatteras Island is essentially cut off now due to NC-12 destruction in several areas - a new inlet was cut about 5 miles north of Rodanthe and that's not the only problem. The only access is going to be by ferry, and I'm assuming residents and supplies will take priority. The last time a new inlet was cut in that area, it took 2 months to fix it and it wasn't anywhere near as bad then.
Edit:
There are now 3 breaches in NC-12.
Here's a video of the major breach.
As the links George posted clearly show, NC 12 between the Oregon Inlet bridge and the first town, Rodanthe, is heavily damaged. The closest comparison might be the inlet cut in between Frisco and Hatteras Village a short while back. I believe it took around 2 months to get that plugged up and the highway rebuilt. This one doesn't appear to have (yet) developed full tidal current flow in and out 4 times a day, and so it may not have scoured out to +15' in depth, as the inlet at Frisco did, but there is still much to be done to plug it up and make it passable again.
When the Bonner Bridge over Oregon Inlet was damaged and closed for a couple or three months in 1990 (or 1991?), the NCDOT built new ferry landings on each side of Oregon Inlet and while slow, we were able to get across for tourist-related activities like surf-fishing. Emergency supplies, vehicles, and personnel are at this time embarking from Stumpy Point, on the mainland astride US 264 some 25 miles west of Mann's Harbor, with connection to Hatteras Island at Rodanthe, below the new cuts. Whether or not the landing at Rodanthe is routinely accessible by ferry from the north side of Oregon Inlet is the big question. A navigable channel existed across Oregon Inlet in 1990 and I rather doubt such is available all the way down to Rodanthe. If it's not, and if some sort of repairs to NC 12 can't be completed very quickly, my guess is the ferry system will begin to take non-resident traffic in due course, so such travelers will have to jog west across Roanoke Island to Mann's Harbor, thence south to Stumpy Point. The big ferries accessing Ocracoke from both Cedar Island and Swan Quarter started today, August 30, albeit on a schedule limited to daylight hours only and for residents/property owners only. I rather suspect the Hyde County authorities will open Ocracoke to visitors at the earliest possible moment. Once that takes place, and once the Ocracoke-Hatteras Island short-hop ferry re-opens, travelers can access Hatteras Island from the normal, if long and involved, ferry routes from Cedar Island and Swan Quarter, NC. NC Ferry system info is available at www.ncdot.org/ferry/ and it appears there's a strong effort to maintain up-to-the-minute information for travelers.
Given that tourism is the primary industry down that way, we can rest assured all deliberate speed will be arranged and much communication as to status will be provided.
Foy
A hotly-debated item, yes
The replacement for the Bonner Bridge, originally scheduled to be replaced within 30 years of its 1963 opening, has just received final design approval. A major sticking point was an alternate plan to move the bridge's path west by a short distance, then south on low pilings for another 12 miles to a point below the "bad and getting worse" places on the north side of Rodanthe. The alternate route would have cut directly through Pea Island National Wildlife Refuge and through miles and miles of wetlands, so strong environmental objections were raised.
The geologist's perspective is to stop wasting time and money on bridges altogether. Barrier islands are temporary and trying to prevent them from moving with hardened structures on the ocean side and trying to deal with the natural process of sound-side flooding cutting open new inlets is foolish. There is a slight logic to connecting them to the mainland where the sound on the mainland side is narrow, such as is the case at Atlantic Beach, NC and many points south and west of there, but the business of building bridges across inlets, features which migrate materially, is fairly nutty, to be perfectly blunt about it.
As good as the Seabees are, and my "baby son" is one of them, they're stretched pretty thin with deployments right now. I don't see a mobilization of Reserves to build much of anything which the badly depressed private construction industry can provide. The active duty battalions are in a tight rotation of deployment overseas followed by high levels of training at home, then back overseas, so they're generally unavailable for domestic duty.
Foy
Is there any information....
... as to how Portsmouth fared?
Lifey
I looked at making a new thread, but...
I looked at making a new thread, but... all of the discussion seems on-topic (same "road trip").
How did your beach house fare?
Mark
The locals call it "The Bunker".....
.......and they all profess to want to take shelter there during bad weather.
She's a circa 1948 2-story cinder block cottage with the windward (north) side cut into the back side of a major dune, so the windward side is but 1 story above ground. Low, hipped roof. Not much of a wind signature amongst the much newer and twice as tall houses on each side. Downstairs floor is some 9' above mean sea level. We're fond of saying "if we get a storm surge into the house, we're talking NOAH". The historic high was not from a hurricane, but from a nor'easter known as the Ash Wednesday Storm, back in 1962. Even then the surge was > 1.5' from getting inside. The surge from Isabel was inches below Ash Wednesday, and the November 2009 nor'easter was inches below that. Irene's storm surge was inches below Isabel and '09, but that was as measured in Norfolk, some 10 miles west/southwest, and closer to places at which the wind piles water up in estuarine creeks. We're a goodly distance from estuarine creeks.
Foy
Update Friday, 2 September, 2011
Looks like the plan involves temporary military bridges. Construction estimated to be between 14-21 days, with onset only after US Fish and Wildlife Service approves, as the land between Rodanthe and Oregon Inlet is mostly within Pea Island Nat Wildlife Refuge.
More later,
Foy
Update Saturday, 3 September 2011
The NC DOT is now projecting earliest traveler/tourist access to Hatteras Island (and Ocracoke?) to be 17 September. Temporary bridge to be installed just below Oregon Inlet within Pea Island NWR and filling-in of new inlet on the north edge of Rodanthe. Projected temporary bridge completion date is "end of September".
Residents and property owners being allowed back, in stages, starting tomorrow (Sunday). The ferry ride from Stumpy Point to Rodanthe is shown to be 2.5 hours and Stumpy Point to Hatteras Village at 3.0 hours. With projected traveler access beginning 17 September, one can only assume that'll be by ferry, either from Ocracoke to Hatteras or from the new "temporary" Stumpy Point ferry landing.
More later,
Foy
Could be that's all there is.........
Quote:
Originally Posted by
glc
I doubt that it would be from Stumpy Point - too long a voyage to be able to handle any kind of volume.
As of Saturday, 3 September, Ocracoke Island (lying in Hyde County, south of Dare County which includes Hatteras Island and the Nags Head to Duck, NC beaches), is allowing resident access only. Noted is the fact that "there is no access to Hatteras Island from Ocracoke Island at this time", and the NC DOT Ferry division updates exclude mention of the Ocracoke-Hatteras ferry.
That leaves Stumpy Point-Rodanthe and/or Stumpy Point-Hatteras Village as the only two routes on to Hatteras Island. I am not aware of any plans to re-open the ferry landing on the north side of Oregon Inlet, likely because all this does is cross the inlet to the landing at the foot of the Bonner Bridge at the north tip of Hatteras Island, miles north of the breach/new inlet at Pea Island NWR and that at Rodanthe. I am further not aware of the existence of a navigable channel for large ferries for the 10-15 miles down the Sound from the north side of Oregon Inlet to Rodanthe.
Bottom line seems to be: If Hyde County re-opens Ocracoke to travelers/tourists by the time Dare County does the same for Hatteras Island, presumably the NCDOT will bring them from the existing landings at Cedar Island and Swan Quarter, thence across the short-hop ferry to Hatteras Island. I must imagine the plan is to keep the Stumpy Point-Hatteras Village or Rodanthe emergency route running at least until the new inlets are bridged or filled, as accessing Hatteras Island from Swan Quarter is much farther from Dare Co than is Stumpy Point, and is darn near a day's drive shorter than going all the way west, south, then east to Cedar Island. The "Down East" part of Carteret County from Beaufort, through Davis, Sea Level, and Atlantic to the Cedar Island landing was on the northeast quadrant of the storm and was badly flooded and wind-damaged, to begin with.
Foy
