New Hurricane Thread

It's not just the two dudes walking by. He's leaning the wrong way.

 

Hard to say, since it's a flood event more than a wind event, and homeowners' insurance doesn't cover floods.

 

I used to be a regular poster here, haven't in many years, have lurked on threads that interest me for the insight, but am back under a new handle in defense of Topsail a little. I've got a new user name because I don't recall my log-in info, and the connected email is no longer valid after getting out of the newspaper business. Starting a new career enabled me to have the time and resources to be a property owner in Surf City.

I won't be able to get over there for a couple of weeks to see what damage has been done, and I suspect the storm surge has been brutal. The flooding has been pretty intense from the information I've received. I saw a video along Roland Ave. near East Coast Sports that had at least a foot of water. Heck, there are several roads on the island that flood like crazy in a summer storm.

Topsail Island is 26 miles long and really is three different beasts. Surf City in the middle of the island is higher and pretty solid geologically. My spot is a mile and a half to the south of the stop light about mid way between the beach and the sound. To the south, Topsail Beach is pretty solid except for the last mile-plus of the island, and nothing is built there for that reason. North Topsail, on the other hand, is a disaster waiting to happen or maybe in progress. There are houses with sandbags around them at New River Inlet that may very well not be standing as we speak.

 

Welcome back.

 

Thanks. I got out of the business and became a high school teacher in 2012, and it's been about that long since I posted.

 

I'm glad you posted this. I have been going to Topsail a couple of times a year for the past 6-7 years and that was my sense of the Island. Surf City and the south end of the island have large dunes as protection while the north end has much smaller dunes and is wearing down naturally due to erosion. I imagine this storm is just making that all the worse.

 

You got it. I try to be there fall break in Oct., Christmas break, spring break in March, as much of the summer as possible, and any time I have at least a three-day weekend. When I retire, it will be a full-time home.
My favorite at the moment is Shaka Taco. I hope it survived the storm. They've got great tacos and pretty good jerk wings. If you prefer burgers, we can head up the Gallagher's.

 

Yeah, Surf City and Topsail Beach have been pretty solid since they opened the island to development. North Topsail hasn't been around that long, and it might not be around much longer.

 

The big hits to the island were Fran and Bertha back to back in 96 and maybe whatever this turns out to be. Simple rising water and flooding are bad but not devastating. If it breaches the dunes and has the surge behind it, that has me concerned.

 

Fran wiped out all the dunes on Topsail Island. All of them. Harvey flooded the only house that was on the island at the time, and that didn't deter anyone from developing it.

I hope your place fared well @Driftwood. I really do. And I agree that Surf City and Topsail Beach are in better shape than NTB. They are all great places to vacation.

All I am saying is if I was going to invest in coastal property in North Carolina, that island is the last one I would consider. It's development is a poster child for bad coastal management.

 

The following is based purely on walking-around, eyeball estimates and not empirical data: but it seems to me that Emerald Isle and Atlantic Beach would be much more prone to flood damage than Surf City and Topsail Beach. The area up around Fort Macon is raised, but EI and AB have always seemed to me to be flat and not very well protected.

My mother-in-law used to live in Newport, and it is big time flooded right now.

I was an honest to goodness refugee two years ago in Matthew, sleeping Saturday night in my truck in Pembroke. Hurricanes and flooding in Eastern N.C. are a point of both fascination and hate for me. I honestly think I watch hurricane coverage like a pyromanic watches fire.