Your experience with hurricanes.....

[emeraldgirl]

With my experience in regards to hurricanes in HR, I faired pretty well considering power outages and flooding. I lost power for about 1 week with Isabel and that is the longest amt of time I can remember with any storms we have had, being without power. You just have to be prepared. I had to move my car into a parking garage and made sure we had plenty of canned food, h2O, batteries, evacuation rte planned out (never had to evacuate though), box with important docs, etc.

Normally, the Outer Banks gets the brunt of any storms coming in that direction but you just never know. Hurricanes can be unpredictable at times.

[Where'sHome?]

SleeptoDream - I appreciate your comments. It helps to get a grip on what's making me nervous.

Everybody is such a huge help with all this. I appreciate everybody's input and sharing of experiences. The map from above and all the research I can get my hands on is great, but I like hearing from the folks who actually live in the Hampton Roads area.

Thank you again and keep the info coming!

[CosmicWizard]

Although we lost power early ( a big Oak tree across the street fell on the power lines and made one helluva a boom when that happened ), we watched and listened to hurricane Isabel with our front door open. No damage to our home in Great Neck Estates, but lots of tree branches down. Power was out for about 10 days. We cooked on a grill out in the back yard, and kept small amounts of food in an ice chest. After the clean up work was completed it was somewhat of a party like atmosphere. There were no city lights on that first night....that was a real treat in an urban environment! No TV for 10 days was also a blessing. We spent alot more time in the back yard. Fortunately the storm occurred when the temperatures were relatively mild. Doing without AC was not a big deal.

But Isabel was just barely a hurricane and it carried little moisture. The flooding that occurred was tidal flooding rather than flooding casued by huge amounts of rain. Even with this minor tropical storm-hurricane, there was quite a bit of damage which took the city sevaral weeks to clean up. IF a big storm ever does hit Hampton Roads, with powerful winds and significant rainfall, Hampton Roads would be a disaster area. With so many bridges and tunnels on the main traffic atrteries, getting everyone out of there would be a massive challenge that would probably fail....leaving many people trapped in the storm and its aftermath.

For whatever it's worth, I once read that Psychic Edgar Cayce chose Virginia Beach for his center because of a psychic revelation that Virginia Beach was a safe location. That never gave me much comfort. I wanted to live in a safer location away from the coasts, so my wife and I moved to western Colorado in July '06. Wether or not we are actually safer here, we do however feel safer in the desert!

[Where'sHome?]

Well that was rather encouraging until you mentioned you are writing from the safety of COLORADO!

That's kind of what I understand about HR. I also read that the tracking usually hits NC first.

Thank you for your thoughts and input!

[lammius]

Originally Posted by UHgrad

Furthermore, this area will most likely never sustain a direct hit like New Orleans because the typical track of storms comes from the southeast and hits north carolina before it hits us. Most storms that impact hampton roads will be weakened category 1 storms at best. It is a crap shoot as to how often we get one, on average maybe every 5 years but they seem to come in bunches followed by long dry spells.

That's generally true. One exception was Felix in 1995. That storm was out by Bermuda and hung a sharp left-turn and came due west toward Va Beach. We braced for a direct landfall. But at the last minute the thing turned around and went back out to sea.

File:Felix 1995 track.png - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

But Virginia is very lucky that NC sticks its chin out and shelters everyone from direct blows.

The worst storm I remember down there was Gloria in 1985. We lost a couple of trees at my family's house in Portsmouth (only time that ever happened). Floyd in 1999 was memorable too, not so much for damage, but because the heavy rains caused flooding and contamination of the Portsmouth reservoirs. So we didn't have water for a week, and therefore no school. The National Guard was handing out water at several locations, and the news channels were showing crowds and fights. It looked like a 3rd world relief effort. I drove out to a buddy's place in Chesapeake to take showers.

I was down on the Outer Banks for a few storms. Fran ('96), Bertha ('96) and Bonnie ('98) I remember well, watching the wave action from a house in Kill Devil Hills. and I remember evacuating from Duck for Bob ('91) and Emily ('93).

I'm surprised to see Isabel ('03) brought up by so many. I missed out on that one--kinda. I was in the Shenandoah Valley when that came. There was a lot of rain, and some minor flash flooding. A JMU student was killed when he tried to kayak or raft (I forget which) down a swollen creek during the storm.