An Omen Over Topsail Beach
I was quite excited as I left Durham last Friday for a long weekend at Topsail Island and a chartered fishing trip off the coast... I just knew that there was a tuna, dorado, or blue out there with my name on it. My excitement was tempered somewhat because I knew Hurricane Leslie was churning only a few hundred miles out to sea. Leslie was actually downgraded to a tropical depression late that Friday, though that's still no consolation. Such storms are still quite powerful and potentially destructive, and often whip the ocean into a frenzy... sure enough, we got the call at 5 am the next morning from the boat captain. I rarely get calls that early in the morning that are good news, and as far as our fishing trip was concerned, this one followed suit... small craft advisories were out, with 8-foot swells where the Topsail Sound and the Atlantic meet. Even a fair-sized boat would likely capsize in those conditions... and the next day was destined to be worse. Oh, well, better safe than sorry... and this is far from being the first of such a letdown. In Septembers past, vacation plans have often come to a screeching halt, particularly because September is a very active month for Atlantic storms.
North Carolina is no stranger to hurricanes... historically, it has been the target of some of the most destructive storms ever recorded. Those storms are often the added "insult to injury" from lesser, though still impactive hurricanes that occurred within a few weeks earlier. We were set for a Labor Day weekend at Topsail Island in 1996, the very day Hurricane Fran came ashore. A 12-foot storm surge and high winds did incredibly extensive damage to the island, but not just there. Hurricane Bertha had hit the state a few weeks earlier, leaving an awful lot of rain in its wake... the ground was still saturated when Fran dumped 16-inches of rain in Durham. With sustained winds in excess of 70-mph as it approached the central part of the state, it didn't take Fran long to uproot thousands of oaks, poplars, and pines from the compromised soil. I had worked rather late that Friday, and I remember it was a somewhat harrowing drive home with trees laying across the interstate highway... I'd never seen anything like that before. I spent that night awake for the most part, listening to transformers explode throughout the city. The power stayed out at my place for over two weeks before it was restored. The next day, and for days afterward, I went, with chainsaw in hand, to clear roofs of fallen trees and to set out tarps over the damaged structures. Two years later, Hurricane Floyd would follow similar conditions set up by Hurricane Dennis as it dumped 15-inches of rain throughout the state. Floyd moved fast through the state, but not before it dropped an additional torrent of 19-inches, exceeding the 500-year flood conditions for the Tar River, as well as the Neuse, Roanoke, Waccamaw, New, and Cape Fear rivers. The resultant flood devastated eastern North Carolina... the Coast Guard performed some 1700 fresh water rescues, mostly of people stranded on rooftops as the flood surged. My church set up a huge tent, afterwards, as an outdoor kitchen using catering equipment to feed folks in one of the worst hit areas, Belvoir... it stayed up and in use until that December.
Though we didn't go fishing this weekend, the weather did improve for a good time at the beach, though this ominous sky hanging overhead on Friday evening would indicate otherwise. There's still a fish with my name on it out there, and its days are numbered, destined for a charcoal grill and some mesquite smoke... but that's a story for another time.
An Omen Over Topsail Beach
I was quite excited as I left Durham last Friday for a long weekend at Topsail Island and a chartered fishing trip off the coast... I just knew that there was a tuna, dorado, or blue out there with my name on it. My excitement was tempered somewhat because I knew Hurricane Leslie was churning only a few hundred miles out to sea. Leslie was actually downgraded to a tropical depression late that Friday, though that's still no consolation. Such storms are still quite powerful and potentially destructive, and often whip the ocean into a frenzy... sure enough, we got the call at 5 am the next morning from the boat captain. I rarely get calls that early in the morning that are good news, and as far as our fishing trip was concerned, this one followed suit... small craft advisories were out, with 8-foot swells where the Topsail Sound and the Atlantic meet. Even a fair-sized boat would likely capsize in those conditions... and the next day was destined to be worse. Oh, well, better safe than sorry... and this is far from being the first of such a letdown. In Septembers past, vacation plans have often come to a screeching halt, particularly because September is a very active month for Atlantic storms.
North Carolina is no stranger to hurricanes... historically, it has been the target of some of the most destructive storms ever recorded. Those storms are often the added "insult to injury" from lesser, though still impactive hurricanes that occurred within a few weeks earlier. We were set for a Labor Day weekend at Topsail Island in 1996, the very day Hurricane Fran came ashore. A 12-foot storm surge and high winds did incredibly extensive damage to the island, but not just there. Hurricane Bertha had hit the state a few weeks earlier, leaving an awful lot of rain in its wake... the ground was still saturated when Fran dumped 16-inches of rain in Durham. With sustained winds in excess of 70-mph as it approached the central part of the state, it didn't take Fran long to uproot thousands of oaks, poplars, and pines from the compromised soil. I had worked rather late that Friday, and I remember it was a somewhat harrowing drive home with trees laying across the interstate highway... I'd never seen anything like that before. I spent that night awake for the most part, listening to transformers explode throughout the city. The power stayed out at my place for over two weeks before it was restored. The next day, and for days afterward, I went, with chainsaw in hand, to clear roofs of fallen trees and to set out tarps over the damaged structures. Two years later, Hurricane Floyd would follow similar conditions set up by Hurricane Dennis as it dumped 15-inches of rain throughout the state. Floyd moved fast through the state, but not before it dropped an additional torrent of 19-inches, exceeding the 500-year flood conditions for the Tar River, as well as the Neuse, Roanoke, Waccamaw, New, and Cape Fear rivers. The resultant flood devastated eastern North Carolina... the Coast Guard performed some 1700 fresh water rescues, mostly of people stranded on rooftops as the flood surged. My church set up a huge tent, afterwards, as an outdoor kitchen using catering equipment to feed folks in one of the worst hit areas, Belvoir... it stayed up and in use until that December.
Though we didn't go fishing this weekend, the weather did improve for a good time at the beach, though this ominous sky hanging overhead on Friday evening would indicate otherwise. There's still a fish with my name on it out there, and its days are numbered, destined for a charcoal grill and some mesquite smoke... but that's a story for another time.