How did you NC people do with Ophelia?

[caribepr]

Maybe this should be in the Aftermath thread...move it if so? But I feel we really haven't paid much attention to some people in NC (and elsewhere?) who did get a pretty hard blow from Ophelia - in the wake of Katrina and the blow up of the new invests and now TD, and what is coming along.
I just hope things weren't too horrible and hope life gets back to *normal* before long for those who were hit and hit hard by the O hurricane.

[Beau]

Thanks for the concern. I am a native North Carolinian who has lived in Carteret County all my life. I was here for Connie, Diane and Ione in 1955 as well as Hazel in 1954 and Donna in 1960. Ophelia was, in my opinion, the worse I have seen since Donna. Wed night was an extremely stormy night (I slept none all night). First time in 23 years of living at my present location in an extremely well built house that the walls creaked and the windows sounded like they were blowing in at any time. The eyewall came right up to the coast and the storm moved maybe 40 miles in 12 hours. The house received some minor damage for the first time in my life. A large number of homes were flooded in the county and probably 1 home in 4 in my area lost shingfles and siding. We were very lucky-only a few more miles per hour winds would have brought disaster. As it is the tidal surge did enough. I can not imagine what those people in coastal Mississippi went through. 75 mph with gusts to 96 from a SLOW moving Cat 1 is bad enough-thank you!

[shaggy]

We got lucky inland in Greenville, the highest gust was mid 30's we did get 3-5 inches of rain in a fairly short amount of time but other than that it was a non event here.


here is a full summary of ophelia!

http://www.erh.noaa.gov/mhx/14Sep2005/14Sep2005.html

[huricanwatcher]

We got lucky inland in Greenville, the highest gust was mid 30's we did get 3-5 inches of rain in a fairly short amount of time but other than that it was a non event here.

we needed the rain so bad... came down hard and ground just sucked it down... now time to mow foot high grass.

[NC George]

It was even less than a non-event here in Ayden (15 miles S of Greenville.) We were in a pocket of non-activity, got 1.75" rain in two bursts about 12 hours apart, nothing at all inbetween.

[oceanguync]

I have lived here the past 12 years and have experienced many storms this one lasted longer than any one--Just saw some aerial photos of bere and after and it is shocking--the storm suge on the sound was amazing--So much wind for such a long time with a cat one--we were fortunate it was not a cat 3 or 4 as it was moving so slow--wednesday night was a long nite with wind and rain and the power off
thanks for your concern and prayers

[inotherwords]

How big was the storm surge?

I really feel for you guys. We went through it last year and even a Cat 1 is terrifying enough. I know I've had enough now to last a lifetime, although I know that for all of us more is to come.

[NCHurricane]

Here are a couple of local NWS office's preliminary storm reports on Ophelia:

Morehead City/Newport NWS

Wilmington NWS

Not as bad as it could have been, but bad enough for those affected.

Chuck
http://www.nchurricane.com

[Okibeach]

I live on a barrier island just south of Wilmington. We had 17-1/2 inches of rain according to the Raleigh N&O. Amazingly the town of Southport that sits about 4-5 miles away at the mouth of the Cape Fear river only received 7 inches. They had caught the edge of the western eyewall and due to the incredibly slow speed of O missed out on the deluge. My house is only 2 years old and faired with nothing more than a flooded crawl space and backyard. My neighbors pine now resides in my back yard as well. I was incredibly fortunate that it missed my house and tool shed by about a foot. I went out for a look at the damage with my neighbor who is an insurance agent and found very little wind damage. Charley blew through here last year at about the same strength and did a tremendous amount of damage to the first several rows of homes along the beach, but for some strange reason there was hardly a shingle missing and just a few houses with the siding ripped off. The flooding was another story as you can imagine, but even that did not affect to many homes as most are on pilings. Most of the roads that were flooded were pumped out within a day or two. I think that if this amount of rain fell anywhere inland where it would have had to drain through creeks and rivers, would have had NC looking as bad or worse than what Floyd had done. We lost power for 12 hours, which would have been much worse save for the fact that they have been undergrounding all the power lines on the island. The power went out after a pole which carries the primary feed to the island over the intercoastal snapped in half. Overall, O was more of just a loooong windy day for us. Thank God!

[orion]

I just finished editting a video taken the day after ophelia hit here in Carteret County... if you're interested, see http://www.storm2k.org/phpbb2/viewtopic.php?p=1059677#1059677 for a link.

~orion

[oneness]

Wow, excellent work! This is a video to show anyone who ever doubts what a Cat 1 storm (and a rather weak cat 1, at that) can do. Those who take a Cat 1 lightly are flirting with disaster.

[Skyline]

Here @ southern New Hanover we had sustained winds of over 60 with much higher gusts. 15" + of rain. There was a report of 84 mph gusts here. I watched a part of a roof disintegrate around 9:30AM and then all kinds of debris, garbage cans, siding, shingles etc, blow around thereafter. The lake, which they drained completely before the storm, filled in about 6 or so hours and was flooding badly north and south of the lake by 4:30pm. Some roofs caved in around here; a little bit of flooding.

All in all, worse than I thought. I will not stay for anything above a cat. 2. Doing that so close to the beach is lunacy.

[caribepr]

Thanks (for what is here so far) for helping me/us get a bit of a picture of what happened there. No lives lost, it appears and while bad (some serious damage it sounds like) not cataclysmic <sp?>. Thankful Sunday...in this strange season, I'm taking what I can get for the good side, day by day!

[orion]

Wow, excellent work! This is a video to show anyone who ever doubts what a Cat 1 storm (and a rather weak cat 1, at that) can do. Those who take a Cat 1 lightly are flirting with disaster.

thanks... yes, I think many around here were surprised at some of the damage from a cat 1.

~orion