Possibly highest Chesapeake Storm Surge Ever....

[Derecho]

One reason for the "BUST!" posts are that a lot of the media were concentrated in places like Virginia Beach where not much happened.

The portions of the OBX that did suffer severe damage (Avon, Buxton, Ocracoke) were too cut off for even the media.

And as it turns out the really huge surge was up the Chesapeake Bay where no national media had staked itself out, really.

The local tidal rivers here are higher than I (or even old-timers) can ever remember. Fortunately, in my county my sister has been county planner for 20+ years and housing in flood areas has basically been eliminated; all we have are parks and fairgrounds in them.

But around the Chesapeake and Potomac the storm surge flooding has been enormous; higher than the 1933 hurricane and comparable to Hazel according to old-timers. Much of Annapolis and whole neighborhoods of Baltimore that have never flooded are underwater.

And there are whole areas of the southern Chesapeake (Crisfield, Tangier Islands, Smith Islands) I haven't heard anything about even on local news.

[JetMaxx]

I agree with you Der....it's the worst flooding around Annapolis and Baltimore I've ever seen....and even worse than 1933; which is understandable since Isabel was a much deeper hurricane at landfall (957 vs 971 mb).

I warned folks this would be a bad hurricane and would put storm surge flooding in places it had never occurred before in any of our lifetimes...and sadly it did.

And if people think the northern Outer Banks (Nags Head, Kitty Hawk) were damaged, wait until they see what Isabel's storm surge did to the southern Outer Banks from Rodanthe and Avon to Hatteras, Ocracoke and Portsmouth.

I saw some video from a newschopper overflight about an hour ago, and there are motels, businesses, and beach homes that are gone in Hatteras Village....several houses left floating in Pamlico Sound WEST of Hatteras. The damage appears almost as bad as Dauphin Island and Gulf Shores did after Frederic; and is very reminiscent of the Florida panhandle coast after Opal....highways are washed away, cuts where the storm surge carved new channels in Hatteras Island; in fact, the storm surge damage in the Hatteras area appears far worse than after the passage of hurricane Emily in 1993.

[floydchaser]

Storm surge was the major story with this storm. That's why this kind of track, which is very rare, is so dangerous for the mid-atlantic. The wind reports from Isabel are fairly weak, although they were also low for the 1933 storm. However, both took the same track, significantly impacting areas not used to hurricanes. Even though people associate the Outer Banks with hurricanes, they haven't ended up on the NE quad of a storm in a while. If Emily had plowed 20-30 miles farther inland, the result would have been devastating.