What a difference a week makes.
A week ago, on Friday, Oct. 7, we were getting ready for the quirky, dangerous, and difficult-to-forecast Hurricane Matthew. We had already suffered through a week of forecast tracks that changed daily, if not twice a day.
However, by Friday, most folks on Hatteras Island, at least, had decided to take this storm seriously. Part of the reason was that many of us were surprised by the damage that tropical storm Hermine managed to do on Sept. 3. The other part of the reason was that forecasts coming out of the local National Weather Service office at Newport/Morehead City were getting our attention on the subject of storm surge.
Friday into Saturday morning, we were moving vehicles, picking up yards, putting away outdoor plants, moving belongings up higher underneath the houses, getting out the lanterns and flashlights or checking the generator and getting extra gas.
Saturday afternoon and evening we waited and worried, and at 4:30 a.m. we got the big windshift to the north, the north wind blew a steady 45 to 50 with gusts over 70, and the Pamlico Sound began surging over southern Hatteras and Ocracoke islands.
We feared it would be bad, and for many it really was.
On Hatteras Island, Frisco and Hatteras village bore the brunt of the flooding, especially Hatteras village. According to the county’s damage estimates, 122 houses in Hatteras village and 54 in Frisco had major damage — most of it flooding in the living area. Ocracoke also had what will probably be a record storm surge.
Dare County has offered help on Hatteras through Social Services, but Hatteras village didn’t wait for that. By Monday, they were organizing a help detail, led by Mary Ellon Ballance, president of the Ladies’ Auxiliary of the Hatteras Volunteer Fire Department. The island’s Certified Emergency Response Team (CERT) volunteers also came to the village, as they had after Hermine.
Volunteers also came from other villages that had been the harder-hit locations in previous storms – such as Avon and the tri-villages. School kids also helped out on Monday and Tuesday when they were out of class, and some of them continued after classes the rest of the week.
Volunteers showed up to clean up the flooded churches. They knocked on doors of people who are older or have health issues to ask them if they needed help. Neighbors showed up at your front door to ask what they could do. Some people started collecting wet and smelly clothing and washing it for storm victims. Others prepared food. Dinky’s restaurant offered a baked chicken dinner with mashed potatoes and green beans to those who had flood damage and others who were volunteering.
Some folks helped families with flooded houses, some helped business owners get opened back up, and some helped clean up smelly yards, covered in mud, eel-grass, and debris.
It’s the way islanders have been pulling together after storms for as long as anyone can remember.
As I write this on Friday, Oct. 14, all of Hatteras and Ocracoke are open for visitors — except for Hatteras and Ocracoke villages. Hatteras village will be open to visitors tomorrow — Saturday — at 7 a.m. and Ocracoke hopes to be open to visitors on Monday.
The decision about when to let in visitors is made in Dare and Hyde counties by a local control group.
The Dare County Control Group is activated during emergencies, such as hurricanes, and consists of the chairman of the Dare County Board of Commissioners or his designee, the county sheriff, the superintendent of the Cape Hatteras National Seashore, and the mayors of the six municipalities in the county — Duck, Kill Devil Hills, Kitty Hawk, Manteo, Nags Head, and Southern Shores. All but the seashore superintendent are elected officials.
The control group makes decision on such things as evacuation and re-entry — not just for visitors but also for residents.
And for as long as there has been a control group — or anything like it — there’s only one thing that everyone can agree on about the group’s decisions. And that is that every decision the group makes ends up being controversial.
Matthew is no exception. I think most islanders from Buxton north agree that it was time to let visitors back onto the island yesterday. The decision to let them on just to Buxton — with a roadblock to turn visitors away from Frisco and Hatteras village seemed to work okay.
I think most would agree that the decision to let visitors into Frisco today was a good one.
It gets to be more controversial when you get to Hatteras village where residents who were victims of the storm are still pulling wet carpet, furnishings, and mementoes of their lives out of their homes and piling it on the street.
Many residents of the village feel that they don’t need visitors driving around sightseeing, which is certainly true.
However, other residents — especially business owners and some employees of businesses — feel that it’s time to open up and make money again.
And, even that decision gets confused by the fact that many employees of businesses can’t go back to work because they are still cleaning up the mess at their houses.
In the end, though, islanders always welcome visitors. And we hope that all of you will be patient with us. Our village streets may not look as spiffy as they usually do, and some of our businesses may not be open yet. Others may be short-handed.
I have one other musing about Matthew that I’d like to mention in this space.
Some folks, especially perhaps members of the Dare County control group, feel that the forecast from our local Weather Service office in Newport/Morehead City wasn’t on the mark.
At the noon briefing on Sunday, October 9, as we were being slammed by Matthew, the control group issued this statement, “Due to greater impacts than anticipated from the storm, access to Dare County is restricted.”
I strongly disagree. The greater impacts should certainly have been anticipated.
First, I know that a forecast is just that — a forecast, a prediction. You can’t expect it to be correct down the exact inch of rainfall and exact feet of storm surge.
That said, I’d say that our local office did a really good job of giving us the guidance we needed.
Rich Bandy, meteorologist-in-charge of the office, gave webinars twice a day for almost a week and sent out briefings three times a day.
On Tuesday, it looked like we would be slammed by Matthew. On Wednesday, it looked great for us — like Matthew would go out to sea. But on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, Matthew inched back closer and the rainfall, storm surge and wind forecasts start rising.
From Island Free Press, posted Friday, Oct. 7, early afternoon
On southern Hatteras and Ocracoke — and some other coastal areas along the southern Pamlico Sound — the heavy rainfall will mix in with a surge from the Pamlico Sound that is now forecast to be 2 to 4 feet above ground level and 3 to 6 feet above normal.
Bandy adds that in Hermine, average ground level surge was measured by the National Weather Service at 2 to 3 feet above ground with 4 feet in the low spots.
“In this case,” he said, “I’d actually prepare for a foot higher than Hermine, with up to 4 feet above ground at average ground elevations and up to 5 feet in low spots.”
The wind forecast has increased for Hatteras and Ocracoke. On Matthew’s current track, sustained winds of 45 mph are possible with gusts more than 60. The winds direction will be mostly northeast.
From Island Free Press, posted Friday evening, Oct. 7
Matthew’s forecast track shifted slightly again in the 5 p.m. update from the National Hurricane Center, bringing the storm closer to the south coast of North Carolina Saturday night before it moves east out into the Atlantic and eventually re-curves back down to the south.
There are no changes to the tropical storm warning for the entire North Carolina coast from Surf City to Duck and the hurricane watch from Surf City to Cape Lookout that the Hurricane Center issued this morning.
However, at this evening’s webinar, Richard Bandy, meteorologist in charge of the local National Weather Service office in Newport/Morehead City, said that there are some changes to the forecast for the Outer Banks, especially Hatteras and Ocracoke.
Wind speed forecasts have increased. Southern Hatteras and Ocracoke should prepare for sustained winds of 50 to 55 mph with gusts to 70. Northern Hatteras Island can expect slightly lower sustained winds of 45 to 50 mph with gusts to 60. The highest winds will begin Saturday night and last into Sunday.
On southern Hatteras and Ocracoke — and some other coastal areas along the southern Pamlico Sound — the heavy rainfall will mix in with a surge from the Pamlico Sound that is now forecast to be 2 to 4 feet above ground level and 3 to 6 feet above normal.
Bandy adds that in Hermine, average ground level surge was measured by the National Weather Service at 2 to 3 feet above ground with 4 feet in the low spots.
“In this case,” he said, “I’d actually prepare for a foot higher than Hermine, with up to 4 feet above ground at average ground elevations and up to 5 feet in low spots.”
From Island Free Press, posted mid-day Saturday, Oct. 8
Here is a recap of the Hatteras-Ocracoke forecast.
- Wind speed. Southern Hatteras and Ocracoke should prepare for sustained winds of 50 to 55 mph with gusts to 70. Northern Hatteras Island can expect slightly lower sustained winds of 45 to 50 mph with gusts to 60. The highest winds will begin Saturday night and last into Sunday.
- Storm surge. On southern Hatteras and Ocracoke — and some other coastal areas along the southern Pamlico Sound — the heavy rainfall will mix in with a surge from the Pamlico Sound that is now forecast to be 2 to 4 feet above ground level and 3 to 6 feet above normal.
Bandy adds that in Hermine, average ground level surge was measured by the National Weather Service at 2 to 3 feet above ground with 4 feet in the low spots.
“In this case,” he said, “I’d actually prepare for a foot higher than Hermine, with up to 4 feet above ground at average ground elevations and up to 5 feet in low spots.”
I think that the Dare County Control Group had enough information by Friday to call for an evacuation of visitors to Hatteras Island.
At the very least, I think the county’s control group had enough information to block all access to Hatteras Island by Friday night, instead of waiting until midnight Saturday at the height of the storm.
By not calling for a visitor evacuation or blocking access on Friday night, many visitors who didn’t need to be here and didn’t know what they were in for, ended up riding out the storm. Thankfully, no one was injured, but, unfortunately, some visitors once again lost their vehicles to saltwater as they did in Hermne.
By the way, Bandy and some of his staff from the Weather Service spent yesterday on Hatteras measuring the storm surge from Matthew in the various villages.
They also measured the surge after Hermine last month and determined that in Hatteras village the surge was — as forecast — 2 to 3 feet above ground level with up to 4 feet in low spots.
Yesterday, in Hatteras village, Bandy said, the surge was “on average” 1 1/2 feet higher than it was in Hermine — with higher water levels in low spots.
That would bring the actual surge in Matthew in Hatteras village to 3 1/2 to 4/1/2 feet above ground level on average with some low spots at upwards of 4 to 6 feet.
It looks to me like our local Weather Service folks gave us the information we needed to prepare for a major storm surge on Hatteras and Ocracoke.
