Hurricane Florence was no friend to Oriental, NC. Winds and rain were heavy, and lasted almost 30 hours, which brought water levels in town to an all time high. Several homes, businesses, streets, docks and boats received severe damage. We were spared somewhat because we raised our home a few years ago, but we still had damage to siding, the workshop, and we lost all of our stone patio and stairs. The whole area was also completely filled with debris, some trees and some docks, but mostly tons and tons of swamp grass. We raked, pitch forked, wheel barrelled and trucked the stuff off our yard non-stop for 6 days, it would of been much longer if our son hadn’t flown down from Boston to help for a few days. Most in town were dealing with the same thing. The good news was we always had running water, people remained positive and the power company did a ton of work to restore power within a week. The Salvation Army, Red Cross, local businesses and other groups supplied meals, bottled water and bagels for all who needed them. Recovery work for many will continue for months, after being displaced because of damage during Irene, we understand what some folks are going through, the news and testimonials can’t really explain how tough it is for some people, our hearts go out to them.
We made the 12 hour drive back to CT to get our boat on Wednesday the 26th, luckily, we had another lucky tree frog with us as a guide. He hopped off in VA before he ended up too far north for the winter. After reprovisioning the boat and returning our rental car, we took a couple hours to enjoy dinner at the Black Seal and had a traditional Irish Coffee at the Griswold Inn to celebrate memories of better experiences than what Florence brought.