I am on the North Carolina coast this morning watching Gabrielle develop to the east of us.
It brings back memories of the fall of 2003. I don't remember the name of hurricane whose remnants whacked Reston, but I do remember that we had a vice president in from Cupertino.
The stop lights stopped working on Wiehle, and I can remember my daughter staying up most of the night making certain that her sump pump was going to handle all the rain.
Fortunately the power stayed on in the residential areas.
And much to the relief of our vice president, the show we on. We did our presentations, and it went back to his comfortable perch on Apple's campus.
It is hard to think that we have a storm coming. The picture in the post was snapped yesterday evening on the White Oak River. This morning there is just a light breeze, not a cloud in the sky, and the temperatures are in the upper sixties.
Yet the this is what we are seeing as warnings from the Weatherunderground and NOAA.
...Storm surge and storm tide impacts...
as winds increase starting later this afternoon...water levels will
begin to increase along the coast. In addition...astronomical tides
will be higher than normal through Sunday. A storm surge of 2 to 3
feet can be expected along coastal sections. The Pamlico and Neuse
rivers will have storm surges of 4 feet....Wind impacts...
winds will start to increase along the coast on Sunday morning...and
are expected to reach tropical storm strength along the coastal
sections Sunday afternoon. Maximum winds are expected to reach 45 to
55 mph....Flooding impacts...
two to four inches of rain is expected across eastern North Carolina
with isolated amounts of 6 inches possible. Flooding of low lying
and poor drainage areas can be expected.
We can use some rain, and at this point what is forecast for Cape Carteret which is the closest town to us is certainly no more than what we have had in overnight thunderstorms.
I know most areas of North Carolina and Virginia would love some of this rain. We have been lucky this summer with timely downpours so the yards are still green here right on the coast.
We are back from the coast a few miles and our beaches are south facing so I don't think there is any panic at this point. We saw higher winds in Nor'easters last winter. We also saw higher tides this spring.
Still tropical storms are unpredictable so we will be watching closing and ready to take action if necessary. We certainly aren't treating this lightly.
I hope Gabrielle turns out no worse than the tropical storm I endured the fall of 2003 when I had to host our enterprise vice president. Even the minimal effects of the storm were quickly gone.
The vice president was gone almost as quickly. He just stopped coming to meetings in Cupertino sometime in December. No one noticed until January when they sent out a notice thanking him for his contribution to Apple.
It is a wonder to me that vice presidents always make a contribution to a company when they are often more like a hurricane blowing through than anything else.
At least we get rain from hurricanes, most vice presidents only have hot air.
