TheSamba.com :: View topic

Mon Aug 29, 2011 5:41 am

Also known as surfnc..

The news reports were not good..

"By dawn Sunday, the four feet of Hurricane Irene floodwaters that had suddenly inundated downtown Manteo, N.C., on Saturday night had drained off to an ankle-deep trickle. Dirty brown waterlines left on the sides of coffee shops and bookstores were waist high."

I'm sure he is too busy to be bothered now, but wish him luck.

Jim

Mon Aug 29, 2011 5:44 am

He reported back on the Manx forum:

Looks like he came out fine.

SURFNC wrote:
We came through the storm OK! Thank you all for your thoughts and prayers!! I hope and pray that Tom and Kathleen and TJ Tom have done well as well. Also for all the others who are in the path or have gone through this storm.

We had very minor issues: branches down, pine straw everywhere and we lost power for 29 hrs. (We live on a high lot and are about a mile from the water.) We did see 90mph winds with slightly higher gusts, but they were defused by the tall pine trees around our house. We have power now and if you looked at my yard you would never know anything happened. (spent the day cleaning up) With that said the west facing sound front (bay front) took a terrible beating. There was 4'-6' of water in and under houses, cars flooded and floating away. There is also a layer of smelly silt covering the areas where the water was. During the height of this flooding some people had 3' breaking waves coming into their houses. Nothing like this has been seen here for well over 30 years. People lost their houses and some businesses just down the road from me. You may not see any of this damage since it did not happen on the ocean side.

Once the eye of the storm passed we had a strong west wind the blew the water up the sound (bay). It piled up until it had gotten to 4'-6'+. This is all wind driven and not really affected by the tides like on the ocean side. My buddy, where I docked my boat, called me at 11:00am and told me that my boat was sitting on the bottom with no water on the canal. (when we had a NE wind that blew the water out and away from shore) He then sent me a picture at 6:30pm of my boat floating 1' over the bulkhead and his pier was 2' underwater. He ended up with 2' of water in his ground floor and the water over the wheels of his cars.

The irony of all this is that I got an e-mail from work at 10:45am this morning to come into work to help check on damage on rental houses. There was no asking how me and my family were or if we needed any help. I have Vincent and you all concerned about me and some of the people I work for are only interested in the, sad to say, money. I have had people e-mail, text, and facebook to find out how I fared that I have never met in person. I am grateful for everyone's thoughts and prayers and if you want to know what kind of people are interested in dune buggies? THE BEST kind of people!!!!!!!!

Vince

Mon Aug 29, 2011 8:28 am

Glad to see Vince fared ok. My Daughter goes to school with Vince's niece and today was supposed to be the first day of school, so I was just waiting to he ar back through the 14 year old grapevine. :lol:

Mon Aug 29, 2011 8:49 am

Great update. About 800K at high point in VA without power. Not much fun after a few hours.

Mon Aug 29, 2011 9:39 am

Here on Long island I am still out of power and it might not be till the end of the week tioll all have it back - ...waiting....

Mon Aug 29, 2011 11:10 am

Not far from Vince...

FOR SALE - only property on HAT with water 4 sides!

Jim

Mon Aug 29, 2011 1:07 pm

Jim...

Where is that^^^^

Dave

Mon Aug 29, 2011 2:12 pm

Yikes... and his roof is still there! Glad to hear Vince is ok along with the rest of his family. I thought we were having a bad day after 40 hours with no electricity. That guy needs a bridge!

Mon Aug 29, 2011 5:24 pm

The photos are from North Carolina Hwy 12 - from Nags Head to Cape Hatteras and points south... we now have 3 or 4 new inlets...

I tested Vince's son Andrew here in Raleigh; I think that Vince doesn't have power...

Vince lives on 'high ground' there in Manteo area...

Bryan

Mon Aug 29, 2011 6:32 pm

:D And in a week that house will be worth a million for the waterfront access. Even if you do need a boat to get there!

Mon Aug 29, 2011 6:56 pm

I learned 40 years ago about 'not building your castles on sand'.... others didn't pay attention. :shock:

Seems like a yearly tradition here in NC... beach washes away, State miraculously finds funding to push sand from one spot to another, then Mother Nature conspires to undo the efforts of placing cubic yards of sand and spending cubic bushels of dollars... so that a handful of folks can live on a shifting sandbank. I'm not against their right to live there, but I am against any funding - from the General Fund, FEMA, the EPA, or elsewhere - being used to rebuild the affected areas.

But that isn't a rant for here... :wink:

bnc

Mon Aug 29, 2011 7:05 pm

More importantly, are everyone's VWs okay?
Jeff

Mon Aug 29, 2011 8:31 pm

Jim,
Thanks for your prayers and concerns! We are fine and just had some downed branches and lost power for a little over a day. I am just getting back from work 10:45 pm. I cleaned pools for the company I work for for the guests they let back in at noon today. (not on Hatteras Island where your picture was taken) I then went to Corolla and took care of my parents place and a couple of other friends' houses, so I am beat. I will comment on some other stuff tomorrow. (Weather Channel, greed, thoughtless tourists etc.)

I wanted to add that some others are in worse shape than we are. Roy, another buggy/Manx owner, is in the Richmond VA area and is dealing with Irene and the earthquake. I feel very blessed, that we came through with so little affect.

I am overwhelmed and awed by the concern of all of you. (I am a terrible typest but will go into more soon.)

I look forward hopefully seeing you all at the Manx on the Banx event in Oct: http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=449191 which should not be affected by this hurricane.

Thanks again to all of you!!
Vince

Sat Sep 03, 2011 6:28 pm

Thank you all again for your concern. It has been a very busy week with 10-12 hr days working to get the pools ready for the guests that came in after the hurricane.

There are some areas inland that just got their power back and they are taking supplies to Hatteras Island by ferry. The road to that area of the OBX (pictured previously) may be out for 4 weeks, so they will have quite the challenge on their hands. The problem is not in the ability to fill and repair the road, it is that the "inlet" was cut on Park Service land and has to go through a lengthy local, state, and federal process (the federal process is the tough part) to go forward in the process.

I did want to touch on the Weather Channel. They seem to "root" for any storm and seem depressed if it is down graded or weakens. They do like to "risk" their lives to show you all the "drama". (not "action and drama" MURZ) Last year when Earl came through Jim Cantore came down and made much ado about nothing. (we do get 50-60mph winds during Nor'easters in the winter-spring and no one comes to report it) The sign at one of the local surf shops nominated him for "best actor in a fictional drama". I definitely agree. When they show the person on the beach watch to see if they show the ocean. When they do not there really is not anything going on. Also look for the sea oats, they are the grass on the dunes. When we have a 30mph wind they really move. When you see them barely moving, again not much happening. They also seem to leave and move on forgetting about the areas they were just in "risking" their lives for weather.

On the greed thing. I kinda of feel like Quint in Jaws sitting in the back of the room listening to the town council talk about opening the beach. We had just came through the storm on Sunday and by Monday noon they were letting the tourist back in. (Nags Head, Corolla waited till 10am Tues) Most of the locals who take care of the rental houses barely had time to get their own stuff together much less have all the rental properties ready. Some people were coming to work with no power at their own houses and having to go through 1-2' of water to get to them. The first tourist I saw, as I was on my 2nd hour cleaning the same pool of all the sand, pine straw, and trash, asked if I was the guy he had to talk to about getting a refund because he could not use the pool at that second. This was not the way all the guests treated us but it was not in any way unusual. The greed comes in in the fact that they could have given us another day and we would have had things in far better shape. I know that we are a tourist area and my job is dependent on them but one more day would have made a world of difference to us.

Rant over. Things are almost back to normal in the northern beaches (Nags Head, KDH, Kitty Hawk, Duck, and Corolla). There was very little beach erosion, the weather has cooled off, humidity has dropped and I am looking forward to my favorite time of the year here, Fall.

I hope to see some of you here soon for the Manx on the Banx event.

Vince

Sat Sep 03, 2011 7:18 pm

surfnc wrote: Thank you all again for your concern. It has been a very busy week with 10-12 hr days working to get the pools ready for the guests that came in after the hurricane.

There are some areas inland that just got their power back and they are taking supplies to Hatteras Island by ferry. The road to that area of the OBX (pictured previously) may be out for 4 weeks, so they will have quite the challenge on their hands. The problem is not in the ability to fill and repair the road, it is that the "inlet" was cut on Park Service land and has to go through a lengthy local, state, and federal process (the federal process is the tough part) to go forward in the process.

I did want to touch on the Weather Channel. They seem to "root" for any storm and seem depressed if it is down graded or weakens. They do like to "risk" their lives to show you all the "drama". (not "action and drama" MURZ) Last year when Earl came through Jim Cantore came down and made much ado about nothing. (we do get 50-60mph winds during Nor'easters in the winter-spring and no one comes to report it) The sign at one of the local surf shops nominated him for "best actor in a fictional drama". I definitely agree. When they show the person on the beach watch to see if they show the ocean. When they do not there really is not anything going on. Also look for the sea oats, they are the grass on the dunes. When we have a 30mph wind they really move. When you see them barely moving, again not much happening. They also seem to leave and move on forgetting about the areas they were just in "risking" their lives for weather.

On the greed thing. I kinda of feel like Quint in Jaws sitting in the back of the room listening to the town council talk about opening the beach. We had just came through the storm on Sunday and by Monday noon they were letting the tourist back in. (Nags Head, Corolla waited till 10am Tues) Most of the locals who take care of the rental houses barely had time to get their own stuff together much less have all the rental properties ready. Some people were coming to work with no power at their own houses and having to go through 1-2' of water to get to them. The first tourist I saw, as I was on my 2nd hour cleaning the same pool of all the sand, pine straw, and trash, asked if I was the guy he had to talk to about getting a refund because he could not use the pool at that second. This was not the way all the guests treated us but it was not in any way unusual. The greed comes in in the fact that they could have given us another day and we would have had things in far better shape. I know that we are a tourist area and my job is dependent on them but one more day would have made a world of difference to us.

Rant over. Things are almost back to normal in the northern beaches (Nags Head, KDH, Kitty Hawk, Duck, and Corolla). There was very little beach erosion, the weather has cooled off, humidity has dropped and I am looking forward to my favorite time of the year here, Fall.

I hope to see some of you here soon for the Manx on the Banx event.

Vince
Well, you just have to realize you are insignificant and only the help and not one of the "beautiful people". :?
Jeff

Sat Sep 03, 2011 7:52 pm

Jeff
I forgot to say that I put all my Manx bodies in my shed so they made it through fine.

Vince

Sat Sep 03, 2011 8:52 pm

surfnc wrote: Jeff
I forgot to say that I put all my Manx bodies in my shed so they made it through fine.

Vince
That's good as nothing else really matters..... :)
Jeff

Sat Sep 03, 2011 9:35 pm

Thanks for the update Vince. Myextended family and I are coming down for vacation next Saturday (one of the reasons I can't make Manx on the Banx) I was going to bring the Manxter and take a long drive down to the ferry and over to Ocracoke but that's obviously out of the cards now. Thinking I probably won't bring the buggy at all now

Sun Sep 04, 2011 6:13 am

surfnc wrote: Thank you all again for your concern. It has been a very busy week with 10-12 hr days working to get the pools ready for the guests that came in after the hurricane.

...

I hope to see some of you here soon for the Manx on the Banx event.

Vince

Thanks for the update Vince, looking forward to the Manx event!

Sun Sep 04, 2011 7:11 am

Glad to see everything's OK Vince. Good idea moving the buggies. We put the Manxter in the hauler in case there was a problem with trees falling on the garage here.

I will be in touch about how far south we can go on the street run for the Manx on the Banks event. Tom