By Cindy Reed
We were enjoying a family fun October vacation in paradise… Hatteras Island located off the coast of North Carolina. Crazy seashell collections. World class fishing. Relaxing on the sunny beaches in the Cape Hatteras National Seashore.
It’s Friday morning. Our last day. We wake up to…what! Water all around. Our oceanfront beach cottage turned into a moat. The ocean was spilling between the sand dunes and surrounding the front steps. The sound waters were flooding across the highway to the driveway in the back. No electricity.
We grabbed the battery-operated radio to get a report. An offshore low pressure weather system sprang up overnight. It took everyone by surprise. A hard nor’easter was pounding Hatteras Island.
A runaway dredge, the Northerly Island, slammed into the Bonner Bridge at 1:28 am. The storm tossed vessel lost its moorings. Dragging its anchors and straining against the 90 mph wind gusts, the 200-foot vessel with 130-foot high cranes rammed the span. The impact caused a 370-foot section of the bridge to collapse into the watery Graveyard of the Atlantic. With it went the electric power and telephone lines that ran under the bridge. The island lost its only land link to the mainland.
The only way to get off the island was to take a 60-minute ferry to Ocracoke Island. Drive the 13-mile trip to the village. Then take a second ferry to the mainland that ran every 5 hours.
When the storm was over, we packed our bags in the car and drove to the ferry docks. So did everyone else. The line of cars was huge! And going nowhere fast. The radio reported that so many people had taken the ferry to Ocracoke, they got stranded… lined up for miles… waiting in their cars all day and going nowhere. The Red Cross supplied them with sleeping bags, peanut butter and bologna sandwiches. The local residents were offering fresh coffee walking up and down the highway… it was a mess.
I reached into the glove box of our Ford Taurus and pulled out the owner’s manual. With pencil and paper in hand, I began doing the math. The Taurus was 202.9 inches. We were 2 miles from the Hatteras ferry. Convert car inches to feet… the miles to feet… that’s approximately 620 cars.
Two ferries take 30 cars a piece per trip, one hour each way. The cars drive 13 miles to Ocracoke village. Then catch the next ferry which carries 50 vehicles and runs every 5 hours… Monday. It would be until Monday before we could get off the island safely… taking 2 ferries to the mainland. Two more days.
We turned around. Went back to the beach cottage and hunkered in to wait where it was dry and we still had supplies.
The sun was shining again. Army helicopters flew generators back and forth between towns to give them a few hours of power. We used our canned goods and the extra water supplies on hand. Radio reports continued on the slow progress of the stranded motorists. Finally, it cleared out Sunday night. My calculations worked! We left at the crack of dawn Monday morning. And enjoyed dinner on the mainland.