isabel

September 15th, 2003.

Today is a bright beautiful day on the Outer Banks, with no real sign of the impending predicted hurricane. Only the large ocean swells give away the approach of a storm.

We had a business errand run to make from Manteo to Kitty Hawk today, and we saw a few businesses and a few homes boarding up. A more prevalent sign of something big coming was the number of TV news trucks we saw. And also the number of trucks running around with their bellies filled with plywood heading for a board-up job. Another business run took us down the beach to Salvo this afternoon. A steady stream of campers and trucks pulling boats was headed north and out of the area. But all in all we were surprised that the traffic was not heavier, and that there seemed to be so many visitors still here. Even the campgrounds in Rodanthe still were mostly full. The visitors definitely seem to be waiting for the official word telling them to pack it in and head out.

Earlier in the day we had seen a real tale-tell sign of possible bad weather coming. A steady white wake of charter and fishing boats was headed north to inland safer places to escape the storm surge. When we passed by Oregon Inlet and Pirates Cove marinas they were getting bare. Also there were many crab boats out picking up their crab pots. The real sign we locals always look for is when the Manteo Ford dealer starts moving his cars to higher ground! Then we really take it seriously!

It seems so quiet and calm here now, and for that we are thankful. With such a beautiful day, it was hard to concentrate on work getting ready for a storm.

5:00 am. I'm up early today. Excited to check the latest advisories on Izzy. It looks like it weakened slightly overnight, but as of now, there's still a big bullseye painted on the Outer Banks. I have quite a plethora of websites that I check which show satellite data, water vapor loops, and even some amatuer weather forecasters opinions. It's amazing to me that the projected track has remained almost exactly the same for days on end. That's unusual, as they usually change it over time. The Emergency Management Group in Dare County is meeting at 6 am today to make a decision on evacuation. The buoy data offshore of South Carolina shows wave heights up to 18 feet now.

5:oo pm What a pleasure to drive home tonight on such an empty highway! I just set the cruise control on the BMW and let her roll with hardly a stop, and not many cars in sight. The evacuation went very smoothly, with no traffic jams on the Outer Banks that I saw. There were highway patrol and DMV at every intersection to direct if congestion occurred, but it was not even like a normal Saturday's in season traffic leaving. That may be because there are many still here. I don't think many locals left. It really is hard to believe there's such a monster storm just off the coast, cause it's a perfect September evening here. Burgers and zucchini on the grill, crickets singing, a beautiful sunset.

There were many more businesses and homes boarded up today that we saw. The TV crews are "embedded" and making up stuff to broadcast. The grocery stores are busy but not really running out of anything except fresh veggies. The first thing you see when you go into a grocery store or Wal-Mart is the large mountains of bottled water for sale stacked right at the front door, and in every isle. Next comes the hurricane lamps, flashlights, and batteries all moved up front in large displays. Oh, and Duct Tape. Tom Ridge would be proud!

I checked on one of my businesses today around 2 pm, and all the employees were busy helping local customers who seemed very oblivious to the storm. It was business as usual! We will be open tomorrow as well. Then we proceeded to the rental homes and secured them for the storm. All around it was quite diverse. Next door the carpenters were busy as usual on a remodel. Down the street some visitors who are renting were getting their hurricane party in full swing complete with coolers of beer on the top deck. Another home featured older second home owners quietly enjoying the beautiful sunshine on the deck. Yet another had a U Haul backed up to a new oceanfront home toting out whatever. All the while, the Southern Shores Fire dept. truck is parading up and down the streets alternating its sirens and a loudspeaker message to "rush preparations to completion and evacuate." It really got comical.

On the weather side, there's still no evidence of Izzy except for the ocean swell and a light breeze. We expect that to change rapidly tomorrow. I took a variety of pics of different sights out and about today, which are up on the Izzy Pics page. Link at top left.

And on the way home, I saw it, the definitive sign--the empty RD Sawyer Ford lot--all the cars moved to higher ground out of the tide water's way. I guess Izzy is on the way after all.

8:00 am. A bit more breezy today. Manteo airport is reporting 14-16 knots, 22 gusts. Duck pier has 26 knots with 30 knot gusts, waves 8.4 at the pier, 10.4 at 2 miles out. Offshore buoys are reporting: South Carolina buoy 41002 29 knot wind, gusts to 35 knots with 25 feet waves. Diamond Shoals 17 knots, gusts to 21 knots with 14 foot seas. Still fairly clear with just some high thin clouds. The satellite shows just the outer edge of the feeder bands creeping onshore. On the local radar, the feeder rain bands are showing up just offshore.

2:00pm Breezing up now. Constant wind of about 25 knots, gusts to 30. Pretty cloudy now too. We took a ride around town here in Manteo, and the people that are left are out taking walks, etc. Everyone's extra friendly and highly animated. There's not much open today at all. A couple of gas stations, and the Food-A-Rama. Darrell's Restaurant has their entire parking lot surrounded by sandbags. Still trying to figure that one out. Hurricane Donna put about 3-4 of water inside that restaurant in 1960.

You know you have a serious storm on the way when your airplane hanger becomes the most requested accommodations on the Outer Banks. We now have a car, a truck, a Boston Whaler, a sailboat, and oh, yeah, our airplane in there! The UPS plane left yesterday for Raleigh. The Park Service Cessna 206 screamed outta here around noon for Raleigh. The Dare Med-Evac helicopter is departing for Charlotte later today.

8:00pm We've been out on the beaches today again seeing what's up, and it's definitely the surf! Those raging waves are getting bigger with every tide cycle. There are many folks out taking a look for themselves. We have been able to freely move around the islands today with no problems. A large rain band swept in about 3:30 this afternoon, and we thought it was all under way then, but the sun peeked back through for a while. The high cloud bands are still streaming in. Tonight when we got home, the sky was pink all over, and the clouds were skitting by really fast.

It was not hard to get yourself on TV or in a newspaper today if you wanted. Everywhere we went there were those embedded reporters looking for news and interviews. Got photographed taking pics of the ocean by a Charlotte Observer news crew. Interviewed by them too.

We found the congregation of weather satellite trucks and news crews camped at the oceanfront Holiday and Ramada Inns. There must have been twenty satellite dishes set up there. Jim Cantore turned to me and said "Thank God for Goretex"! Hip boots, he meant. The foam on the beach is getting deep.

Tonight the winds are picking up and according to the radar we are very soon to receive some real rain bands, probably for the rest of the night. Winds are about 30 knots now. We have stashed everything inside that we can, and the rest will just have to ride it out.

The South Carolina buoy is now reporting 54 knot winds and waves to 28 feet!

5:30 am Woke up to the steady howling of a little 40 knot breeze this morning. Gusts to 45 knots, that's 51 miles per hour, for you landlubbers. Checked all the radars and satellites. Have you seen that eye? It's so large! It doesn't show up well on the satellite but on the radar it is very distinct. It is creeping toward Cape Hatteras. The rain is very heavy and or course, blowing side ways up against the windows.

We filled up the bath tubs with water for household use and every container we have for drinking. I got out all the hurricane lamps, candles, and flashlights. Moved the battery powered camplight into my office next to the computer so I can shut down when Isabel blows the lights out. My battery backup doesn't have a great capacity and even though we have a generator I don't think I want to trust the power supply to this expensive equipment, so we'll stay with you as long as we can. I have a feeling it will be a long day!

Current position of Isabel at this writing is 155 miles southeast of Cape Hatteras. We are located about 70 miles to the north of the Cape, so if she maintains current speed, it will be about another 16 hours before we see the eye or be close to it.

11:30 am Winds are holding pretty steady now around 50 mph, with gusts to 60. Still raining heavily. I can't believe we still have power in Manteo! I have heard of outages all over the area in spots. The Weather Channel is doing a good job of getting out in it to get you some video. I definitely DON'T want to be out near the Kitty Hawk road today! Latest observations from the Buxton (Cape Hatteras) airport are 68 mph gusts and a rapidly dropping pressure- now down to 28.80 inches, or 975 millibars. Looks like the eyewall will be touching first around Ocracoke Inlet.

Boy was that fun! This is the first day I've had DSL service back so that I may do an update. We are running wide open, spending 15 hour days out there cleaning up and getting the businesses back to normal, then after coming home, I spend several more hours TRYING to answer emails, contact friends away from here, and attempt to update this site. I am working on a couple of new pages now which will have even more pics and some commentary on stories of survival and such that we have heard from the storm time.

All our own properties fared very well. We had some minor roof damage at only one of the three rentals, and trees to deal with at home. We personally were without power only two days, some others in my family 4 1/2 days. The phones were a different story, out longer. And of course, internet is way down the list of things for them to fix.

In general the Outer Banks was hit very hard with ocean storm surge near the landfall time and high wave action for hours upon hours. All the homes on the east side of the beach road in the town of Kitty Hawk , and many on the west side of that road are condemned. There was flooding of many homes "between the highways" from ocean overwash. I'm sure you have all heard about the new inlet at Hatteras by now. Hatteras Village is cut off, making it a true island accessible only by boat, with a police pass.

There is major structural damage to oceanfront homes mainly in the town of Kitty Hawk, some around Third st in Kill Devil Hills, around the 15 milepost in Nags Head, and all of south Nags Head below Whalebone junction. I saw a picture in the newspaper yesterday of the oceanfront section of the Whalebone motel near that junction and it was nothing but a collapsed roof sitting on a pile of debris. All of NC 12 (the beach road) was covered with sand varying from inches to five feet deep. Some places the road is washed away in Kitty Hawk.

Hatteras village so I hear from the radio reports lost several motels completely destroyed, and of course the road, power lines, and water lines that used to be in place of the inlet. A restaurant (the Tastee Buds?) was sitting out in the sound on the west side where it had come to rest after washing away. There are many stories of actually fighting for survival during the height of the storm. I am sure we (the Outer Banks) will be the subject of a Storm Stories edition soon. Stay on the lookout for new additions to this site. I'm working hard! I have put links on an idex page to each of the pic pages for those who want to go directly there.

Kim