Hurricane awareness town hall meeting will be Sept. 14 in Hatteras

The National Weather Service in Newport, N.C., Dare County, and The Island Free Press will host a hurricane awareness town hall meeting on Friday, Sept. 14, from 11 a.m. until about 1 p.m. at the Graveyard of the Atlantic Museum in Hatteras village.

The meeting is part of the Day at the Docks, a celebration of Hatteras Island watermen, that begins on Sept. 13 and ends on Sept. 16.

Meteorologists from the National Weather Service office in Newport will discuss Hurricane Irene impacts and lessons learned, the NWS tropical cyclone products, North Carolina hurricane climatology, and the 2012 hurricane update.

Hurricane Irene made landfall near Cape Lookout early in the morning of Aug. 27 of last year.  The storm brought catastrophic Pamlico Sound storm surge to Hatteras Island villages from Avon to Rodanthe and other areas of the Outer Banks.

The storm also cut new inlets on Hatteras Island at Mirlo Beach just north of Rodanthe and on the Pea Island National Wildlife Refuge.

Highway 12 on Hatteras Island was shut down until mid-October when the North Carolina Department of Transportation filled in the inlet at Mirlo Beach and rebuilt the road and constructed a temporary bridge over the inlet on Pea Island.

For about six weeks, Hatteras Island had to rely on emergency ferry service from Stumpy Point to Rodanthe to travel to and from the island and for the delivery of supplies.

The hurricane had serious economic impacts on families and businesses on Hatteras Island.

The NWS meteorologists will have a question-and-answer session after the presentation.

Also, Dare County officials, including county manager Bobby Outten, will attend to answer questions.

In addition, Irene Nolan, editor of The Island Free Press, will briefly discuss the online newspaper’s reader survey on the response to Hurricane Irene.  Residents, non-resident property owners, and visitors were asked about their attitudes toward preparation for the storm, evacuation, re-entry, and how various local, state, and federal agencies responded.

More than 2,200 people responded to the survey, and 1,438 completed it. 

If you missed the survey, you can read about it in our archives in four parts – two on the attitudes of residents and one each on non-resident property owners and visitors who had to change their vacation plans.

Here are the links to the Hurricane Irene Survey articles:

http://islandfreepress.org/PivotBlog/index.php?e=167
http://islandfreepress.org/PivotBlog/index.php?e=168 
http://islandfreepress.org/PivotBlog/index.php?e=169
http://islandfreepress.org/PivotBlog/?e=170

Click here to read other IFP articles about Hurricane Irene and its impact on Hatteras and Ocracoke.