Hurricane Isabel
Isabel packed winds up to 150 MPH in the Atlantic, met a front off the
coast of Florida (probably a wave of prayers) which cut it's speed by half,
and came ashore on the North Carolina Outer Banks on September 17, 2003.
It came through our neighborhood the following day with winds up to 70
MPH, and took out our power and phones around noon. We survived on
candles, an ice supply, and our camper van's AC/DC refrigerator for a couple
of days, then got some real power from our neighbor's RV generator.
Power and phones were restored a week later. We ended up with three
trees down in our back yard, numerous large branches down in various locations,
but no property damage. Needless to say, I bought my first chain
saw and got to work. Total cost of damage in the region is estimated
at up to $2 billion. Below are some scenes from here and around our
Portsmouth community:
Our driveway was blocked by tree-sized limbs. Another nice tree came
down on the banks of the lake...
A neighborhood drive the following morning revealed numerous major trees
down, some damaging homes...
