Slamming ashore Thursday afternoon, Hurricane Isabel generated stinging, torrential rains and 100 m.p.h. winds that caused flooding, disrupted travel, shut the government in Washington and left more than 2.5 million people without power in the mid-Atlantic states.
The storm was blamed for at least seven deaths.
But here on the Outer Banks, where hurricanes are remembered for generations by name and reputation, the once mighty Isabel likely will go down as the storm that packed more build-up and bluster than power and punch.
Winds thundering in from a roiling sea shook the cinderblock walls of the Holiday Inn here, gouged a hole in the roof of the neighboring Ramada Inn and knocked the lights out as the Category 2 storm barged into town at about 1 p.m.
Many of Kill Devil Hills’ 6,000 year-round residents had evacuated their homes on this slender barrier island; police told those who stayed to write their names and contact information for next of kin on their forearms.
The storm left a trail of broken tree branches, shattered shingles and downed power lines that looked like limp noodles in its wake. But the windows in the lovely oceanfront homes in this tiny town survived mostly unbroken and it appeared that the granite monument at the Wright Brothers National Memorial, which will celebrate the 100th anniversary of motorized flight in December, came through unscathed.
Surveying a flooded row of beach houses that looked as if they had sprung up out of a pond, Kill Devil Hills Police Officer Todd Iverson said, “If anyone is still in any of those houses, they’re up somewhere high and hunkered down. But I think most people had evacuated.”
As the winds abated late Thursday, it appeared that most of the roughly 2,000 citizens who elected to ride out the storm here had emerged unharmed. A sign, spray-painted on the plywood covering the windows of the Outer Banks Brewery, summed up the day well: “Isabel Have Mercy.”
It seemed, at least here, it had.
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Cutting a wide swath along a northwesterly track, the storm may have packed less brute force than anticipated, but it wielded its not-inconsiderable power in a massive storm system the size of Colorado, according to National Hurricane Center Director Max Mayfield.
Areas of North Carolina and Virginia were declared federal disaster areas and Isabel’s effects were felt as far north as Buffalo. By Thursday evening, Isabel was downgraded to a tropical storm; it was expected to move north across Virginia and cut through western Pennsylvania and western New York state before dissipating in Canada by Saturday. Forecasters said Isabel could dump 6 to 10 inches of rain on the East Coast.
In Harlowe, N.C., a small community about 25 miles inland from Atlantic Beach, about 30 to 40 homes were destroyed, either by winds, falling trees or flooding, said Jeremy Brown, chief of the town’s volunteer Fire Department.
He estimated about 200 homes were flooded. Firefighters rescued a mother and her two children who were stranded by the flood waters, Brown said.
While coastal areas, particularly in North Carolina and Virginia, took the brunt of the storm’s high winds and surf, Isabel took a toll in a wide, 345-mile path encompassing Washington, Baltimore, Richmond, Philadelphia and other eastern cities.
Leaving early for the weekend at his Camp David, Md., retreat, President Bush conferred by telephone with Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge and other federal officials. “We’re very well prepared for Hurricane Isabel,” Bush said. “We’ve got prepositioned equipment in place. Proper warnings have gone out. And the communications systems are up and running.”
The hurricane spawned threats of tornadoes, widespread flooding and danger from falling trees and loose, wind-borne objects.
More than 2,000 flights at 19 airports in the East and Midwest were canceled, and Washington’s Reagan National Airport was closed. Amtrak service was suspended south of the capital and eastbound from Chicago; it also was curtailed northbound to New York.
Tidal storm surges of 6 feet on Chesapeake Bay battered shorelines and marinas and threatened coastal communities outside Washington.
Power outages were a major concern, with more than 2 million houses and businesses losing electricity as Isabel rolled north. Hundreds of thousands more in the area were expected to fall victim to the outage before the storm moved out. Phone service also was affected in many areas.
Virginia’s Dominion Power and other utilities in Maryland and the District of Columbia brought in reinforcement repair crews from Florida, Georgia and other Southeastern states, but they were not expected to go into action until the heavy winds began to subside.
Four of the seven deaths blamed on the storm were in traffic accidents; two deaths resulted from falling trees. One death was of a utility worker who was electrocuted.
Bush had already planned the weekend at Camp David in the Maryland mountains with King Abdullah II of Jordan to confer on ways to advance the Mideast peace process, but hurried to that retreat Thursday morning to get there before the storm struck.
The government’s new Homeland Security Department, normally associated with anti-terrorist activity, rolled out a large-scale government preparation for Isabel.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency, part of the department, had placed what it termed sufficient emergency response teams and disaster relief supplies throughout the capital area by noon Wednesday.
“Hurricanes are a serious business,” said Michael Brown, undersecretary for emergency preparedness and response, urging residents to follow news reports on the hurricane so that they might be informed of government recommendations and mandatory instructions.
FEMA communications units from as far away as Denver were brought in to provide independent telephone, radio and video links.
Thirty semitruck trailers containing cots, blankets, meals, portable toilets, personal wash kits, sleeping bags, tents, plastic sheeting and roofing, bottled water and portable generators were dispatched to North Carolina, New Jersey and Ohio. Another 10 were being held in readiness for other locations.
Another major part of the department’s emergency response force, the Coast Guard, had some 30 helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft in place and readied a vast fleet of large and small search and rescue vessels all along the Atlantic Coast.
Coast Guard C-130 patrol aircraft were flying out ahead of the storm to shepherd ships that might be caught by the hurricane. The Pentagon opened four military bases in the area to be used as staging sites for emergency teams and supplies.