The Nor'Ida Aftermath

The place you live and see every day looks completely different at bike speed no matter who's turning the pedals. You should try it sometime, and if you have, try it more often. It's an amazing view almost as if you've never really seen it before.

Yesterday I decided to ride north on the beach road from 1st street so I could work into the wind right away and so I could survey the last northeaster's carnage from the week before last. I was riding my fixed gear, a bike sort of given to me by a friend I surf with---a former pro cyclist who has been re-born as a surfer recently having spent a number of years away from the sport. Another friend had just gone over the bike fixing the chain which was bent during my last ride on it, and putting on gum rubber sidewall tires as in vintage 1980. He's a farm boy in Chapel Hill who loves to turn a wrench. He's quite good at it too. Fortunately I can accommodate this fetish with my bikes once in awhile. He's a cyclist also. He understands my quirks on two wheels.

I struggled into yet another northeast wind and was somewhat within myself most of the way toward Kitty Hawk Pier. I did notice the asphalt parking driveways at the beach accesses were swept clean of sand and debris. The towns jumped right on the clean up as soon as the coast was clear.

I soldiered on and rode right past the forensic evidence of the storm now piled on both sides of the road. Was I lulled into monotony by an all-too-common sight? It seems even garden variety northeasters deliver real punch into the infrastructure and homes along the coast these days. The bite of the Atlantic begins closer to its prey each year as erosion takes beach sand captive sending it to some new location---I don't know where---probably on the coast. The sandbars that reflect good surf are re-shaped, or muted, new ones emerge. You have to keep a lookout to know.

I reached well into Southern Shores when I felt a thump, thump, thump on my rear tire. I guessed right away that the vintage tire which hadn't been pressured by 110 psi in quite a long time was coming apart. I stopped to examine it. A split at the edge of the tire face threatened letting the inner tube through and out. I opened my rear brake caliper, relieved air pressure from the tire's hernia, and turned around to limp home. I wondered if I could make it the eight miles home. I had left just enough air to not bang the rim on the pavement, but not enough to keep the bike from wagging around on the squirrely low air tire.

I reached Kitty Hawk Pier and turned south again on the beach road. It was now, slowed down a few more notches, that I really saw what the storm had left behind.

The homes along the beach road in this section of Kitty Hawk are modest and from a time when their owners just wanted "a cabin at the beach". When originally built they stood on 6x6 pilings with single pane windows, many with no floor insulation and not much insulation up top. They were called beach boxes.

This area has been under ocean siege for more than twenty years. During coastal storms now the ocean overwash channels under these homes on their concrete slabs, down their driveways pouring saltwater onto the beach road. The overwash also likes the paved beach accesses too. The towns know this and when coastal storms loom, dump trucks rush to build small (6-8 feet high)sand walls at the ocean end of the accesses.

Along both sides of my route stood giant mounds of sand some 8-10 feet tall with concrete driveways clutching the side of the beach road, hanging on for dear life. There were numerous, intermittent debris piles, still partially assembled stairs replete with picket railings, pilings, sections of decks, pallets, all with beach grass entangled through it. I passed pile after pile after pile, both sides of the road for several miles. It looked as if virtually every oceanfront wood structure had been ripped apart and put in piles along the beach road to await being carted to the dump. So now new ones are being built, all to be fed to the next coastal storm.

For days debris was floating in the surf zone. A friend told me a friend of his landed on floating debris and took a nail in the back when he wiped out while surfing when the wind went offshore right after the storm. Others have spoken about high levels of bacteria in the water from runoff following the massive amount of rain we had. This I can't substantiate.

I hobbled all the way home on that old, split gum rubber sidewalled tire. I guess you can't really go back to what it was like then.

The Latest, Greatest Storm

I drove away from it as it wound up on Thursday. Had to go down to Morehead City for a training. The Weather Channel was proud to name it Nor'Ida---part of their TV ratings grabbing circus passing through our small beach towns. You know the drill: pull your hood up, strike a wind and blowing rain resisting pose before a camera and break into a rage about how terrible it is and that no one, absolutely no one should be out in this stuff unless you absolutely have to.

How terrible a storm like this is lies somewhere at each end of this spectrum---if your home or business is badly damaged, it's a disaster---if your home or business is untouched or holds up, it's just a bunch of wind and rain. Boring. Maybe you can't get to work for a few days and then life goes on. We clean up, make repairs and mark time by debating beach nourishment until the next storm or stormette.

Meanwhile the circus flies through every once in a while. Cantore's in town. More footage of homes falling into the surf in Kitty Hawk north of what long-time locals used to call "Old Station", and what newer-comers now call the "Black Pelican"(restaurant). We'll see these over and over again all year as lead-ins for Weather Channel features. Unlike regular news-reporting channels we can't be saved from this visual repetition even if some new guy named Peterson murders his wife.

So I drive back today from my visit to the Crystal Coast calling friends living at various vantage points along our coast. They report this: South Nags Head, standing water and debris on the beach road, police guarding streets to the oceanfront where damage was heaviest, several houses have fallen, one or more in the ocean, at least one smashed and pushed back in a pile at Surfside Drive, building inspectors condemning homes whose septic systems are compromised, public water supply lines broken, or have structural foundation damage; Kitty Hawk, Beach Road closed north of Old Station/Black Pelican, sand and standing salt and rain water still on the Beach Road; Hatteras Island, Route 12 impassable between Pea Island, about a mile south of Oregon Inlet's Bonner Bridge and Rodanthe about to Lisa's Pizza, road buried by sand and standing water, some road sections broken and completely gone; Dare County schools were canceled for Thursday and Friday, 15 inches of rain fell.

Early Friday evening wave height at the Duck data buoy offshore was over 20 feet with a dominant period of around 15 seconds. Around 9:30 p.m. the wave height had dropped to 18+ feet at 11 seconds. The wave period is the amount of time it takes for the troughs of waves to pass a fixed point (like a buoy). That means a big, hulking swell. We were impressed.

Back in town, I picked my way down the Beach Road in Nags Head headed for Kill Devil Hills starting at Gull Street---debris and some standing water. Left the Beach Road right before Surfside Plaza as the ocean always overwashes the low dunes where the really old shingle-style Victorian homes hang on year after year. Don't want to drive my old Subaru wagon through up to 8 inches of salt water.

I continued north on the by-pass returning to the Beach Road at Barnes Street and stayed north. I pulled into the Martin Street beach access for a look at the beach. A quick glance showed bobbing wood debris in the beach break drifting north in the current. The road was clear down to Prospect Street east of the Wright Memorial, simply called "the monument" by locals. I could see vehicles slogging through deep standing water north of here. This too was most likely salt water which had come through at the 1st and 2nd Street beach accesses just like it usually does.

There's a steady drizzle outside right now. Maybe tomorrow will give us relief from this crappy weather.