LATE REPORTING: The Sandy Hangover

This is the north end of the Cape Charles pubic beach. At least two rounds of FEMA money washed away. However, there was a time within memory when this boardwalk towered like a cliff over distant sand. So, some of the grant-funded beach improvement survives.


I'm sorry to be posting these pictures a day late.  I ran around alot, yesterday, finally free of the house, but couldn't really cope with anything constructive. Not even a shower, although we actually had heat and water thanks to the grace of God, uninterupted power, and a non-flooded (although written off in advance) furnace.

Yesterday, as Sandy was leaving and guys in trucks flooded the roads, the Cape Charles town harbor appeared essentially unharmed. Breakers crashed over the outer harbor bulkheads, but the new decks and buildings stood unaffected. There were even employees at the Shanty. No customers while we were there--but still. Yesterday we were all in shock.

Fourteen tankers and one big cruise ship had anchored near Cape Charles to ride out the storm. This is normal procedure for big ships around here. I've often wondered how much of a spill hazard they pose to the coastline, but nothing bad has happened yet.

Sandy scoured the beaches and cut slices through the dunes. Caravans of tree cutting trucks (one group from Alabama) tooled up Rt.13, heading for harder hit communities. Yet every house I checked for friends, and my own buildings were unflooded and not blown apart.

The people in Seabreeze apartments suffered. But, overall, I think this region lucked out.

Big Thanks to the Town Worker

Notice that the center of the road is not underwater. Neither is the grass. The Cape Charles stormwater system is working. I walked to the beach to get some shots, and met a young man with a town maintenance truck right next to the gazebo storm drain. I'm sorry I didn't get his name. He had a pitchfork, and was keeping debris out of the grate while the wind thundered around him.

People like that make me happy to be human.

YIKES

 

 

Yeah, it's really happening now. Water to the front porch. Basement leaking. Lights flickering. Waves on Lake Randolph. Too early to drink. Too anxious to eat. We're hanging art, to get it off the floor and out of the potential flooding. Priorities.

 

 

Yep, It's Worse Today

I kept waking up and looking out my bedroom window, expecting a flood. All night long, the road was clear or at least running. By morning, a river flowed down the alley from Tazewell to our street, and we now officially live on Lake Randolph. In this picture, there is a sidewalk under the water.

Some trucks are still driving down Randolph and Bay Ave, which is undoubtedly flooded too. So the water isn't that deep yet. My son in Kuwait is e-mailing, saying there is a 4-foot wall of water headed this way. Time to get the art off the floor and onto the walls.

I'll post later if there is still electricity.

Early Storm--or, This Isn't So Bad

Earlier today, the fire department rode through my neighborhood, whooping the siren and announcing, over a loud speaker, that all homes west of Pine Street were subject to mandatory evacuation. Our house is west of Pine, two buildings from the beach.

We didn't leave. I don't know anybody who has. So far, the stormwater system in Cape Charles is draining well--at least in my neighborhood. The street outside my house floods in a summer thunderstorm. But today it rises in a mighty 3 inch hump above the gutters, where the rainwater runs downhill to the bay. Lots of rain, yes. Flooding, no. Pretty amazing.

Chad and I spent the day cleaning the house. We just had the downstairs painted (after a toilet flood ruined the dining room ceiling...oh, water damage, thy name is Sucky). It was a nuclear mess, every item covered with drywall dust. All the furniture and all of the art were jammed into the dining room, which was the first to be painted and the last to store generations (literally generations) of junk. Ugly family heirlooms, wonderful paintings, memorabilia stuffed together in a dusty heap.

I hung the newly washed curtains and wondered if I were rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic. Outside, endless rain. On the Internet, broadcasters begging their audience to take their dire warnings seriously.

Finally, I had to go outside. The wind picked up on the beach, blowing from the north. A mist of bouncing raindrops blew across the whitecaps. Clouds of white sand flew low across the darker, wet beach. There were no people on the waterfront and only a few cars on Bay Ave. Two young guys bolted down Mason with a bag of take-out from Kelley's; and only two people sat outside the pub smoking. About 30 cars clustered in abandoned Meatland parking lot, the town's high ground.

When I went to check on my friend Carole's outdoor furniture, somebody had already moved it to a safe corner. Thank you, somebody.

They say tomorrow will be worse. That's OK. Today wasn't so bad.

SHINY ORANGE SHELLS

I rode my new bike to Blue Heaven Beach today. It's my favorite place in Cape Charles. You could almost say I have a love affair with that beach. The story will come out slowly, I'm sure--more than a decade of obsession with the Chesapeake Bay, the sun, wind, boats and barges, seaglass, dolphins, ghost crabs, gulls and pines.

Pedalling through Bay Creek, I enjoyed the pine needles spread like a fragrant carpet beneath rows of  fall-blooming azaleas. Fucia vibrated in the shade. The knockout roses still blossomed electric red. Idyllic.

Just past the Coach House, I rounded the corner and KABAM! Earth moving equipment. Big, noisy machines were digging a gigantic hole in the Bayview Village field, and piling dirt on top of the hill (which had been created years ago by digging other ponds). A landscaping crew cut truckloads of small wild cherry trees off the distant dunes.

I guess the Beach Club is finally evolving from vaporware into drainage empoundments. Dickie loves to move dirt. I walked around the neon orange perimeter fence, and was surprised by the size of the construction footprint. I haven't seen the plans, but if my eyes don't deceive me the Beach Club is going to be built on a heightened hill, surrounded by a big parking lot and acres of constructed wetlands. You can see over the dunes to the bay from that vantage point.

I parked my bike near the PortaPottie and cut through the dunes. Blue Heaven was sunny and very warm for the end of October. Six pairs of footprints traced the tide lines, but the beach was empty. A helicopter hovered in the distance (as usual) and one lonely deadrise trudged toward the Cape Charles harbor.

What did I find on my beloved beach? Lots of dead horse shoe crabs, three tiny pieces of seaglass,
and a bunch of orange oyster shells. They must have been dyed by rusting crab pots, or a long lost iron anchor.

I'm not disappointed. Sometimes, when people make fun of my business, I say I'm spinning straw into gold. It's a satisfying process, turning found objects like seaglass or shells into art. I have my share of the glass. Now, maybe, I'll make something out of shiny orange shells.