Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Dorian swamps N.C. island
Water’s rush takes people by surprise
ATLANTIC BEACH, N.C. — A weakened Hurricane Dorian flooded homes on North Carolina’s Outer Banks on Friday with a fury that took even storm-hardened residents by surprise, forcing people to climb into their attics. Hundreds were feared trapped by high water, and neighbors used boats to rescue one another.
Medics and other rescuers rushed to Ocracoke Island — accessible only by boat or air — to reach those who defied mandatory evacuation orders along the 200-mile ribbon of low-lying islands.
“We are flooding like crazy,” Ocracoke Island bookshop owner Leslie Lanier texted. “I have been here 32 years and not seen this.”
Its winds down to 90 mph, Dorian howled over the Outer Banks as a far weaker storm than the brute that wreaked havoc on the Bahamas at the start of the week. Just when it
looked as if its run up the Southeast coast was coming to a relatively quiet end, the Category 1 hurricane sent seawater surging over neighborhoods, flooding the first floors of many homes, even those on stilts.
“There is significant concern about hundreds of people trapped on Ocracoke Island,” Gov. Roy Cooper said.
Longtime residents said that they had never seen flooding so bad, and that places in their homes that had never flooded before were inundated.
“We were all on social media laughing about how we’d done well and there was really no flooding at all, just rain, typical rain,” Steve Harris, who has lived on Ocracoke Island for most of the past 19 years. And then, “the wall of water just came rushing through the island.”
“It just started looking like a bathtub, very quickly,” said Harris, who was safe in his third-floor condo. “We went from almost no water to 4 to 6 feet in a matter of minutes.”
Donald Shumate, a spokesman for Hyde County, N.C., said the storm had carried in a rapid rush of floodwater that had risen to 7 feet.
Susie Fitch-Slater, 60, pastor of Ocracoke United Methodist Church, was shocked by its speed. One moment, she said, she was looking at small puddles in her backyard. A moment later, the entire yard was flooded, she said.
“I am from the Outer Banks,” she said. “I was born here. And I have never seen anything like this before. I went into the attic, and I have never done that in my life. There was that moment when you wondered if it was ever going to stop. It’s the most frightened I’ve been, ever.”
Fitch-Slater said much of the water rushed out as quickly as it had rushed in, but it left plenty of devastation behind.
Shumate said that helicopters had been dispatched to deliver food and supplies and to evacuate the island’s most vulnerable residents. He said that about 800 people had remained, on an island with a permanent population that hovers around 950.
Videos posted on social media Friday showed water rising to the windows of cars and halfway up hotel room doors in Ocracoke. A boat made a wake along a road in front of a hotel called Blackbeard’s Lodge. Power lines sparked, and debris filled the flooded streets.
“I’ll just have to restart everything,” Eduardo Chavez, who runs a popular taco stand on the island, said in a brief phone interview.
He said later in a text message that his taco stand had not made it through the flooding. Chavez’s house, not far from the historic Ocracoke lighthouse, also had been flooded by 20 inches of rain.
“We have an absolute major disaster,” said Peter Vankevich, who runs the Ocracoke Observer, the island’s main news source. “It’s unbelievable. I cannot overemphasize the impact here. I hear up in Hatteras things are actually worse.”
Vankevich said he expects almost everyone on the island lost their cars and said that several homes, including his, were damaged by falling trees.
The Coast Guard began landing law enforcement officers on the island by helicopter and airlifting out the sick, the elderly or others in distress, Hyde County authorities said. National Guard helicopters also flew supplies and a rescue team in. Residents were told to get to the highest point in their homes in the meantime.
“Several people were rescued from their upper floors or attics by boat by good Samaritans,” Ocracoke Island restaurant owner Jason Wells said in a text message.
In Buxton on Hatteras Island, close to where Dorian blew ashore, Radio Hatteras volunteer Mary Helen Goodloe-Murphy said that people were calling in to report that “houses are shaking like crazy” and that “it’s never been like this before.”
By evening, the governor said that officials were aware of no serious injuries on the Outer Banks from the storm. One 79-year-old man was airlifted from Ocracoke Island because of a pre-existing condition, authorities said.
“The hurricane has left behind destruction where storm surge inundated Ocracoke Island,” Cooper said. “Currently the island has no electricity and many homes and buildings are still under water.”
Around midmorning, the eye of the storm rolled ashore at Cape Hatteras, Dorian’s first landfall in the continental U.S. after a week and a half in which it spread fear up and down the coast and kept people guessing as to where it would go.
By late afternoon, Dorian had peeled off the coastline and was making its exit out to sea. It is expected to remain a hurricane as it sweeps up the Eastern Seaboard today, veering far enough offshore that its hurricane-force winds are unlikely to pose any threat to land in the U.S.
Power failures had dropped by about one-third, to around 213,000 in the Carolinas and Virginia.
At least four deaths in the Southeast were blamed on Dorian. All were men in Florida or North Carolina who died in falls or by electrocution while trimming trees, putting up storm shutters or otherwise getting ready for the hurricane.
Dorian slammed the Bahamas at the start of the week with 185 mph winds, killing at least 30 people and obliterating countless homes. From there, it swept past Florida and Georgia, then sideswiped the Carolinas on Thursday, spinning off tornadoes that peeled away roofs and flipped recreational vehicles.
In eastern North Carolina’s Onslow County, Emergency Services Director Norman Bryson said Friday morning that the Dorian left “minimal damage” and that officials received far fewer emergency calls overnight than on a normal weeknight.
In southeast North Carolina, where Dorian passed overnight, minimal damage was initially reported. A spokeswoman for New Hanover County, which includes Wilmington, called the area relatively lucky, just with trees down and minor flooding.
As soon as the bridge to Carolina Beach and Kure Beach opened at 9 a.m., motorists flooded across the river to get to their homes, businesses and the ocean.
Makayla White, 25, was one of them, with her surfer husband and 7-month-old baby Mila. While dad joined the dozen surfers already on the waves, mother and daughter played in the sand.
“Dorian spared us,” White said. “[Hurricane] Florence was a lot worse.” Information for this article was contributed by Jeffrey Collins, Ben Finley, Gary D. Robertson, Martha Waggoner, Jonathan Drew, Tom Foreman Jr. and Seth Borenstein of The Associated Press; by Campbell Robertson, Richard Fausset and Nicholas Bogel-Burroughs of The New York Times; and by Fenit Nirappil, Sarah Kaplan, Mark Berman, Jason Samenow, Patricia Sullivan, Kirk Ross and Reis Thebault of The Washington Post.