Effects of Tropical Storm Hanna on Southeastern Coastal North Carolina

Friday, September 5, began cloudy with slight wind gusts and intermittent rain. My husband and I purchased corrugated aluminum window protection panels several years ago, but had never used them. We decided to put them up, not because we felt that Hanna would be a severe storm, but just for the experience of putting them in place. We were curious to see how long it would take and how easy or difficult it would be. (It took about three hours.) The most difficult panels were the ones on the second story, which are put in place from inside the house.

Once we finished, we drove around our community to see how many other people had window protection in place. We saw many different types of window protection: fabric panels, permanent wood shutters, aluminum panels like ours, and even sheets of plywood. About 10 percent of the homes we saw had some type of external window protection. We returned home to wait out the storm. Around 6 p.m. the wind began to pick up, with gusts of around 30 to 40 mph and heavy rain. Hurricane Hanna made landfall right around the North/South Carolina border, about 30 miles from our home, shortly after midnight. The strongest wind gusts overnight were around 50 to 60 miles per hour. Hanna was a relatively fast moving storm and by daybreak was just about gone. We got just about 3 inches of rain.

Midday Saturday, September 6, I drove around the area to see what if any storm damage occurred. Some low lying areas had minor flooding. I saw several downed trees, and a few businesses had signs blown down. A neighbor had some pieces of aluminum trim hanging loose from the eaves of his house. Other than that, no serious damage was visible. Then I drove to the beach, to look at a loggerhead sea turtle nest that we along with some friends had been "sitting" each night for that past week or so, waiting for the baby turtles to emerge and make their way to the sea.

Unfortunately, the nest had been overwashed by the surf. The sand "runway" that my friends had constructed from the edge of the nest down to the water was washed away. The day before the storm, the people who oversee the turtle nest program had removed the metal signpost at the nest site along with the wooden stakes and string meant to keep people from disturbing the area. (Some nests have metal cages around the perimeter and on top to keep foxes from digging up and consuming the eggs.) The high water mark reached all the way to the dunes. Unfortunately, the future of our turtle nest is doubtful. We will probably have to wait until next year and try again to witness a nest hatching.