We Got Lucky: Sandy Recap & Photos

 [Just up the road from us in Mirlo Beach.]

October 1st was when we last saw each other. Justin stayed in Buxton to work on our house this month. I was originially supposed to go home today or yesterday. It looks like I'll be able to go home later this week by ferry, depending on access and road conditions.

Tracking Sandy has been a learning experience. My first inkling of what was to come was an off-hand comment from one of my friends, "There's a hurricane headed toward the Outer Banks." Which I shared with Justin. He was not concerned, so I was not concerned. Until a day or two later when he sent me a panicked text that he was going to get hit by a hurricane. I didn't think it was that big of a deal, after all I've been through a lot of things. And my other friends seemed nonchalant when they mentioned it.

Justin initially planned to evacuate and I'd meet him somewhere after I finished working. He was concerned that if I left too late there'd be too much water and I wouldn't be able to get out. But as the days passed, it appeared that Sandy would miss us. So he decided to stay and wanted me to come to Buxton to stay with him.

I was too scared to go to the Outer Banks. The road floods even in heavy rain and I drive a low level car. Twice this summer I was caught in high water on that road. I wasn't taking chances. I stayed with friends.

As the storm progressed and I read more and more on hurricanes, I became quite aware of our vulnerable state living on the coast in the possible path of a hurricane. Though the forecasters may have predicted that we'd be spared, you never know until it has passed.

I figured out where to go for weather news: Wunderground. They had the best tracking and up-to-date information. As well, the city websites, especially Virginia Beach & Hatteras Island provided frequent updates and information for citizens. 

From the high point in a large house where I sat with my friend Rob (an optometrist who I met on a humanitarian trip to India in 2005) and his wife Iris, I watched as Hatteras took the initial blow from the hurricane, bracing, strong, with heads high in calmness. They've been hit over and over and know how to keep going. Justin's cousin lives with her three kids in a house in Hatteras, which appeared that it'd take on water the first day. They waded across the street to an aunt's house and waited out the storm. Justin said matter-of-factly, "We'll just have to squeegee her house, bleach the floors, and haul the furniture on the lawn."  He's done it before.

The Outer Banks was not in the direct path. Yet nearly the entire place was severely damaged, a combination of high tide, a full moon, and the timing and force of Sandy. Our friends and family suffered damage and the road was ripped up in several places. A temporary bridge built last year after Hurricane Irene withstood the hurricane but may be damaged.

Remarkably, our house stayed dry as a bone, and from the videos Justin was posting of our house, you wouldn't know that we were even having a hurricane. He put them up for my benefit, so I wouldn't worry. His house has not once taken on water since 1937. It's still hard to believe, but after this, I believe it. And I understand. Also remarkable was that he retained power and cell phone coverage the entire time. Which made it much easier on both of us. (Remarkably, his cousin's house also stayed dry.)

Virginia Beach had localised flooding, in lower areas, as well as a large portion of Norfolk. One island was completely submerged in at least three feet of water. It was serious. But nothing like the upper east coast.

At my Rob and Iris' house, they had the news on continuously. Yet I had no idea what was really going on. Even from right where Sandy was coming inland, watching the news didn't help much. There's so much sensationalism that it's hard to know what is going on and what to expect. They repeat stories without giving useful information. It's as good as having no information at all. Without the internet city and state websites and contact with locals on the ground, I would have had no idea what was going on.

I am relieved it's over. But it was a great learning experience.

The waves persisted after the storm.

 Our new backyard lake.

Mirlo Beach (I think).

 Highway 12. The road to Buxton from Virginia Beach.

 More highway 12.

 Okrakoke

A few photos from Highway 12 which is the road I take home to Buxton and the Outer Banks: (from the NCDOT, if you click on the photos, they will take you to their stream.)

Watching Hurricane Sandy

Virginia Beach is opening shelters starting tomorrow morning. Maybe it means nothing. Maybe it means something.

Locals are nonchalant, going about their normal activities, stocking up on water. Justin is at home on Buxton, waiting it out. For once it seems that Hatteras Island is the safe haven. Apparently normally Virginia Beach is evacuated north, but not this time.

Justin said everyone there is acting like it's another day. Which is good and fine especially if you are well versed in ocean weather. For someone like me, it's a different story. I researched the city, trying to determine if I was in a flood zone. I downloaded evacuation routes and figured where I would go if we had to leave.

I put my car in the Westin's parking garage and plan to leave it there to ride out the storm. I had some very old friends who I met in India offer to have me stay with them and I'm taking them up on it- they're stopping by later tonight for me on their way home. It may be overcautious but I always tell my patients piece of mind is serious- don't apologize for needing it. So I am not going to apologize either. Maybe it will be nothing. But with my supreme ignorance in the situation and of the east coast, I'd rather stay with friends and worry less.

Most storms I've been told are nothing. But then there's that rare Katrina or Irene, or Grace, acts of devastation. As long as the hurricane is still swirling, we don't know what will happen. That's the part that's actually scary. And this storm is moving really slow, which causes more problems.

The extreme east coast weather makes me so homesick for the benign northwest, where drizzles reigned and 10mph gusts were considered wind.

I'll keep you posted. I plan to hang out in Chesapeake, VA for the next two days. It's higher ground than here and comes with great company, my surrogate parents. ;)

(21:33 Justin just wrote and said the ocean was over the road.)

Hurricanes, real and imagined

If you click on this link you can see the storm patterns:  Hurricane Sandy.

Which unsurprisingly makes me wonder why we're living on Hatteras Island, 40 miles into the ocean, known as the graveyard of the Atlantic, where ships went down left and right in the past. And where the hurricanes hit ground more than anywhere else on the eastern seaboard aside from Florida.

Justin texted me last night about the storm, sounding scared. He said, " Nor'easterner storm. Roads might get washed out." I didn't quite understand, saying that I had continuing education scheduled for Monday morning and I could leave after that but wasn't planning to return to leave until Tuesday, and I could meet him after that. Wherever he ended up (Greenville? Raleigh?). He said, "You might not be able to leave if you wait too long."

Apparently Virginia Beach gets hit hard too. Maybe those "Hurricane Evacuation Route" signs are up for a reason. I saw them when I first moved to town. They did not comfort me.

Overnight I dreamed nightmares. Mostly of patients and past employers. I woke up early and exhausted.

This last week I scheduled tightly, trying to see everyone and finish as many things as I could before having no place to stay in Virginia Beach. Truthfully, I've enjoyed this month of band practice Mondays, meetings with old friends, thrift stores and a 5k race at the art museum.

I don't understand hurricanes. I understand snowstorms and wind and floods and drizzling rain. I've seen one tornado despite hundreds and hundreds of warnings growing up.

Hatteras had a devastating hurricane last fall which created a new inlet and and left the lower half of Hatteras Island cut off from the upper half. A ferry had to take them across until a new tiny bridge was constructed.

I checked the radar at work and wondered why we were living on an island. There's only 4,000 year round residents on the whole island and from Buxton it's at least an hour drive on a skinny sandbar to get to the mainland. That is if the road doesn't wash out.

On Facebook today, Hatteras Island residents were complaining over and over about the need for a better road. How the government had been mistreating them by making them put up with the inferior quality of road construction.

I wondered, why do they stay. Why not move inland?

The population in Buxton is almost 100% white. The poverty level is much higher than the rest of the state of North Carolina. There are no jobs. To receive proper medical care, they have to drive 1-3 hours away.

All this to live on a sandbar. Where you dig in the backyard and a foot down there's water.

I wonder how much the ocean has to rise before we are under water?

We can only watch and wait and see.

It is not comforting.