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Old 07-03-2008, 09:16 PM
 
Location: Lowest Taxed/Highest Q.O.L. CARY, NC
551 posts, read 572,276 times
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That time of year is coming when we can look forward to excitement from the tropics. A good soaking from a storm would do us a world of good. I would like to hear from people regarding their memories of various types of tropical systems that have passed our way (Raleigh and surrounding areas). When did they happen, what were the called and what did they deliver to us?
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Old 07-03-2008, 09:21 PM
 
Location: Cary, NC
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Fran and Hazel were the big ones in Raleigh. Fran was in 1996. Unbelievable damage in the Raleigh area (give the last direct we had of strong hurricane remnants was during hurricane Hazel). Lots of tree damage and lots of flooding around Crabtree (which was always a crowded area), and the Neuse River areas (which used to be sparsely populated, but is now filled with housing!!). It was a great experience. I was out of school for 10 school days or 2 weeks!!!!!!!!!

Hazel was bad, but Raleigh was relatively small back in the 50's. It was stronger when it hit the coast and moved a lot faster than Fran which may have spared Raleigh the flooding.

Floyd was bad downeast in the 90's. Lots of flooding.

Hugo slammed eastern SC and was the one of the strongest set of hurricane remnants to hit Charlotte, NC and Western NC.
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Old 07-03-2008, 09:45 PM
 
Location: Apex, NC
3,286 posts, read 8,520,137 times
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I was in the Coast Guard back in the mid/late 90's and We got hit pretty bad by both Bertha and Fran back in the summer of '96. We actually evacuated to Raleigh for Fran (From Emerald Isle) and Raleigh was hit nearly as bad as the coast. Stupid me didn't fill up with gas that night and I realized that the next day every single gas station from Raleigh to the Coast had NO power and therefore no gas. I had to leave my Ford Ranger at a gas station in Clinton, NC (about halfway back), because it ironically enough had no gas I was able to hop in a friends car on our caravan and we made it back to Emerald Isle on fumes. We cut our way back down to our station from the main road (trees everywhere) and we went on to start fixing up our station which recieved shingle/siding/glass damage. We were flooded for weeks down there and the whole town smelled like sewage. It was not fun! I obviously have a lot more to talk about, but it would take forever!
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Old 07-03-2008, 09:48 PM
 
Location: Lowest Taxed/Highest Q.O.L. CARY, NC
551 posts, read 572,276 times
Reputation: 141
Quote:
Originally Posted by JQ Public View Post
Fran and Hazel were the big ones in Raleigh. Fran was in 1996. Unbelievable damage in the Raleigh area (give the last direct we had of strong hurricane remnants was during hurricane Hazel). Lots of tree damage and lots of flooding around Crabtree (which was always a crowded area), and the Neuse River areas (which used to be sparsely populated, but is now filled with housing!!). It was a great experience. I was out of school for 10 school days or 2 weeks!!!!!!!!!

Hazel was bad, but Raleigh was relatively small back in the 50's. It was stronger when it hit the coast and moved a lot faster than Fran which may have spared Raleigh the flooding.

Floyd was bad downeast in the 90's. Lots of flooding.

Hugo slammed eastern SC and was the one of the strongest set of hurricane remnants to hit Charlotte, NC and Western NC.

Was Fran still a full hurricane at the point of Raleigh? I can see the Crabtree area flooding, but did that happen anywhere else around here?
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Old 07-03-2008, 09:55 PM
 
8,583 posts, read 15,948,472 times
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With Fran we had major tree damage. Many trees came over root ball and all because the ground was so water logged from 2 days of rain.
Electricity was out for weeks in many places in Raleigh.
Some streets like Ridge Road were a tangled mess of trees and power lines
after the storm.
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Old 07-03-2008, 10:30 PM
 
Location: Cary, NC
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Quote:
Originally Posted by In & Out View Post
Was Fran still a full hurricane at the point of Raleigh? I can see the Crabtree area flooding, but did that happen anywhere else around here?
All the major roads in and around Crabtree Creek and all local creeks were flooded. Wake Forest Rd, Atlantic Avenue, etc were really bad. I didn't get to explore too much as I was in the 8th grade...and roadways were treacherous. Again I do remember my teacher showing us photos of her in the Newspaper canoing around her neighborhood. She was literally trapped in her house for a few days in far Northern Wake County (probably N. Raleigh now) b/c of the Neuse river overflowing. I wouldn't be surprised to see horrible flooding in a lot of the northern developments if this were to happen again.
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Old 07-04-2008, 02:10 PM
 
Location: Green Valley, AZ
19 posts, read 60,604 times
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Default Hurricane Fran

Fran was a MAJOR event in Raleigh, scoring a direct hit with winds at 100 mph or better. I lived in an apartment complex on Ray Road, in a 2nd (top) floor unit. The full force of the storm hit during the night. The noise from the wind and rain was quite loud and just a bit scary. The power went out early. That was no surprise, but we didn't know that it would get much worse. I managed to get to sleep anyway, but was awakened about 3 AM by a loud crashing sound over head. Then I started to hear the sound of water running into the space above my ceiling. The rain was about as heavy as rain gets. I knew that water above my ceiling was real trouble, given that the ceiling is made sheet rock covered by insulation. I had to do something to save the stuff in my bedroom from what was to come. I got up. It was pitch black, with no power anywhere (and no phone, of course). I got a flashlight and lit some candles, and proceeded to move everything out of the bedroom, except the bed, which I covered with a large blue tarp that I had on hand to use as ground cover when tent camping. I had boxes of excess stuff stashed in a corner of the room, a dresser, a guitar, 2 night tables, a desk, and maybe more. First I used a screw driver to punch holes in the ceiling, and buckets and cooking pans to catch water, hoping to delay the inevitable. No sooner did I get the last items out of the room, when the whole ceiling came crashing down, flooding the room. The damage was caused by the chimney structure, which was brick, blowing over and puncturing a hole in the roof directly above my bed. It landed in such a way as to form a funnel, directing water to flow into the hole. There wasn't anything else I could do but sit in the living room by candle light, while the storm raged outside, waiting for daylight. There was a period of calm as the eye of the storm passed through, then the wind started up again. But the rain was lighter and shorter in duration, and by the time it started to get light, the storm had moved on. As people started to emerge from their residenses, they were greeted by a scene of widespread destruction that few had ever seen before. Houses everywhere had suffered damage from trees falling on them, I saw some houses with multiple trees on them. Power lines were down and roads were blocked everywhere. It took weeks, or even months for some, for life to return to normal. Construction crews came in from all over the eastern US, and it was still difficult to find someone to do repair work. A crew from Atlanta did the work on my apartment, but it took a week to get them there.
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Old 07-04-2008, 02:14 PM
 
Location: Lowest Taxed/Highest Q.O.L. CARY, NC
551 posts, read 572,276 times
Reputation: 141
That is amazing. It must have been quite a job getting back to looking as good as it does now.
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Old 07-04-2008, 02:32 PM
 
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It was the weakest possible level of a hurricane when it hit Raleigh.
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Old 07-04-2008, 02:56 PM
 
39 posts, read 166,337 times
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Here is a good read on Fran from a meteorological and sociological perspective from the National Weather Service...

Hurricane Fran
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