Re: [Paddlewise] Some Real Big Water

|The rain had stopped and I stood out there on the sea wall for about an hour,
|totally mesmerized.  I am humbled before the awesome power of moter nature.

|Debbie Reeves
|Sandy Hook, NJ

After a sleepless night due to Mr. Floyd's visit to North Carolina I can report
the big water is yet to come here in the Good Ol' South!  Friday or Saturday the
rivers are supposed to crest due to the heavy rain from Floyd.  The areas that
Mr. Floyd visited near the coast had at least 16, yes sixteen, inches of rain.
The Tar river is going to crest 20 feet ABOVE flood stage!  The Neuse is
supposed to at 27 feet above flood stage on Tuesday. That is big water!  8-(
My wife's grandmother has a farm  on the Tar river lost a couple of century+
year old oaks and three pecan trees.  I think her house is far/high enough from
the river to not be in danger.

We lucked out as being on the western edge of Floyd's Travels.  We had 6 inches
of rain in less than 24 hours.

Thankfully this monster missed the triangle, Florida, and weakened before
hitting the rest of the east coast.  When Fran visited three years ago many
people where without power for 5 to 7 days.   Worse was the large number of
houses that had trees fall on houses.   There are still 35,000 people without
power tonight just in Raleigh.

Many areas are underwater and more are to come.  My wife has family in Rocky
Mount which is just east of I95 in the north eastern part of the state.  Earlier
this morning, hopefully this has changed at this point, the only way into the
city was by air!  The roads had flooded.  Her father lives 25 miles to the west
of Rocky Mount and all of the roads leading out of his area where also flooded.
Some are back roads but US 64 is a major 4 lane highway!  I95 is/was flooded at
two widely seperated locations.  Thankfully my kin, as we say down here, are all
on high ground.

Dennis just did his little dance on the Carolina coast the week before.  I guess
he liked it so much he did not want to leave.  Well, I guess the old saying,
"Its finer in Carolina!," and he just wanted to stay.  One of the local lakes I
paddle was at a very low level.  You could see the lake bed in many places.
After a little bit of rain, 6 inches or so  8-), from Dennis, Jordan lake rose
7, yes seven, feet!    It will be interesting to see how high the lakes get.....

Listening to the wind roar through your trees, wondering if they are going to
fall or not is very, very, very humbling.  Not a damn thing you can do about it.
Just hope they dont fall and get you.  And the wind does not appear to have
gotten about 52mph locally.  One has to be nuts to stay on the coast and be
exposed to 100+ mph winds much less the water.

People behaved very differently with Floyd than Fran.  When Fran came to town
three years ago I was one of the few people that left work early to prepare.
After Fran devestated the area people really took Floyd seriously.  The
evacuation from the coast caused I40 to be a parking lot from Wilmington to west
of Greensboro.  That is a couple hundred miles of road!

Local stores were selling out of ice, bottled water, chain saws, generators,
etc., a day or so before Floyd came to town.  My wife saw people almost get into
fights over D cell batteries at Wally World.  People learned from Fran.

Hopefully this is not too big of a conceptual jump but what people learned from
Fran and applied to Floyd is the same process that people go through as we gain
more knowlege of paddle sports.  An earlier poster talked about introducing a
person to kayaking and realizing how dangerous his earlier trips had been.  I
know I look back on one or two trips and realize I might have been in a little
over my head but I learned.  I think!  8-)

Momma Nature is much more bigger than us little people....

Later...
Dan McCarty



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