2024 Atlantic Hurricane Season Running Thread

Never mind, I had my politi-goggles on. Back to Beryl coverage.

 

*Musta been

 

Not really hurricane related, but this seemed the most relevant thread to share this thought.

It seems like we've had a ton of red flag days on the North Carolina coast so far this summer. My family went to Kitty Hawk for three days in early June and then Emerald Isle for the entire last week of June. Eight of those ten days at the coast were red flags and the other two were yellow.

It got me thinking about it again this morning after reading several stories from the Wilmington-area, where apparently they had to do 70 rip current rescues of swimmers yesterday at Wrightsville and Carolina beaches alone. there was a drowning at Kure Beach and a 14-year-old is missing from North Topsail after wading out into the New River Inlet, and today is another red flag day down that way.

Obviously the fourth of July is a big beach day and more people create the greater likelihood of problems, but that sounds like an awful day for New Hanover and Pender county emergency services. I'm also probably thinking about it because I spent a lot of time last month trying to convince my overly confident 7 year old why even waist-deep water on a yellow flag day, and knee deep water on a red flag day, can be dangerous.

 

Still haven't found the kid as far as I know. I personally haven't seen any rip currents, but the undertow is pretty strong.
You can't do much with kids and tourists, but it's posted to stay the heck out of the water at that inlet. It's dangerous on a good day. It's an inlet fed by a river.
Topsail inlet on the south end might even be worse. We actually started to go offshore Monday in a 20+ foot, heavy, V hulled boat... got to the inlet and decided it wasn't worth it to try. Not dying is more important than fishing.

 

Staying out of inlets is always a good idea. I was about to lose my mind at Shackleford Banks two weeks ago when - against my opinion - the family set up right in front of the Beaufort Inlet because Grandma wanted to look for shells. I spent the whole time we were there trying to keep a 4 year old and 7 year old out of the water entirely.

I got caught in a rip current at EI when I was 14 or so, but thankfully was a strong swimmer, knew the advice at the time on how to swim out of it, and got very lucky that it wasn't as strong as it could be. Scared the sh*t out of me though. I don't remember the flag system being in place back then, but the morning weather report would mention potentially dangerous waters if we bothered to listen to it.

 

I think I’ve seen one (1) green flag day at the beach in my life. Until then I assumed they never went below yellow for the same reason George W. Bush never let the terror alert dip down into the clear range. We always go in the water under yellow because otherwise we may as well have saved money and gone to the pool back in Fuddville.

 

I'm comfortably cautious on a yellow day. I'm just anxious about it with my kids, in part because both are struggling to learn to swim. On a red day, I'm way more careful.

 

We live about two and a half hours away from Atlantic City and will usually go to the Hard Rock Resort once a year during the summer for a few days. The best compliment I can give the place is, when you are there you don't feel like you are in Atlantic City because they've done that fine of a job renovating the place, which was the old Taj Mahal, complete with a beach bar that had a wooden deck, bathrooms, bungalows you could reserve and rent if you were a guest of the hotel. This past winter, the beach erosion was so bad that it wiped out all the way back to the dunes were the beach bar was. They were scrambling to pump in sand and bulldoze it out so there was enough space to have a beach.

 

Looks like Beryl's path is settled. Landfall anywhere between Corpus and Lake Jackson, and amazing track agreement among the models right over Kyle Field. From there it heads northeast and spares DFW the brunt of it.

 

I blame Jimbo Fisher.

Except he's not there anymore, and I ain't blaming George Strait.

 

I blame the Aggie folks who wouldn't let us put up an EZ-Up during state 7-on-7 a dozen years ago. They said the legs would damage their irrigation — the perfect Aggie thing to say.

ADD: Ironic now considering the bountiful irrigation that Beryl is about to provide Aggieland.

 

RIP Houston.
RIP Kyle Field.
RIP Arkansas.