Outer banks vacation with hurricane Matthew

Welcome to … sARTurday

 

This is actually a sad (Friday) Saturday. Sad, because our vacations have ended and we are back home. It is not that I don’t like our home, but – I’d rather be somewhere else. Well, you can’t always have what you want. We all know that one, right?

Anyway, the weeks we spend on The Outer Banks of North Carolina were quite something. We got there just a week ahead of hurricane Matthew. So, for the first week or so we enjoyed as much as we could while we were watching Matthew develop. When it got closer to the US we feared for a few days that the county would implement a mandatory evacuation, which, of course, we would have followed. However that surely would have meant the end of our vacation, since visitors are always last to be allowed back.

Lucky for us, no evacuation was announced and we decided to stick it out and stayed. Through what was ‘only’ a tropical storm with ‘near hurricane strong winds’, let me tell you: I have no desire to experience a hurricane!

We were staying in one of the typical houses on OBX, which are built on stilts for good reason. The way the house is built also means that it moves quite a bit. Even in normal nice weather when I sat on the deck I would ‘feel’ David walking up before I saw him. So, during the storm with around 70 mph winds, a few miles further it was clocked at 90 mph, – trust me – the house was shaking extensively.

The worst hit during the night and we did not get much sleep. We also lost power well into the next day, lost a few screens and our front yard got somewhat flooded, but nothing like our neighbor’s.

We were very lucky. Lots of houses further south, e.g. Buxton, got flooded leaving the owners with nothing.

This house was easily the closest one to the beach that we have ever rented when being on OBX. As the bee flies the beach is probably only about 10 – 15 yards away. Three or four houses up the beach the last protection from the ocean, the dunes, were breached by the ocean’s forces and the waves pounded that house and pool.  A day or so later contractors started working on pushing the sand back filling the dunes. I am just hoping that everything will have settled by the time the next storm hits here.

I probably will make a follow up post with more pictures of the ocean and other things I took while down there. But for now – I have also been doing some drawing both on my iPad Pro and in my sketchbook. One of the pictures I am sharing with you below. I was working on inking the gnarly tree for one of the InkTober prompts when I read that Creative Tuesday’s theme this week is ‘treehouse’. Soooo, I kept on working on my tree and got it sort of a treehouse. Just not for humans. Check out the other CT entries here and while you are at it, why don’t you join in next time?

Hope you like this mix of me and will be linking up your creations.

Cheers,

claudia3

 

 

If I have time I will be linking with one or more of the fine people in this collection – check them out!


tree_birdhouse1

 Before – during – after hurricane Matthew

 Sunset and soundside flooding after the storm

obx-2016-9-of-9

 





 

17 thoughts on “Outer banks vacation with hurricane Matthew”

  1. You both stayed on my mind during that time. I am so glad you made it through safely. I have been at OBX during a gale (very scary for me) so could not imagine staying like you did. Good pictures and glad you were able to continue your vacation. Hugs!

    Reply
  2. Oh wow, quite the view of that storm! We live in Raleigh and got some pretty decent gusts & rain from it so I know the coast was blustery to say the least. I was quite grateful this one didn’t get any more powerful. It still did enough damage in our state. Hopefully that will be the end of the season.

    Reply
  3. Hi Claudia, I cant find your Creative Tuesdays entry but am guessing this is the one, right? Thank you so much for joining in! I like that you chose a linear angle on this theme and even included a video! Wonderful. I look forward to seeing what you do on the next theme, if you plan to join us, I hope? 🙂

    BTW, so people can find your piece, please be sure in the future to link directly to your post wit the artwork adn mention “Creative Tuesdays” in your post title on in the post itself with a link back to the co-op so we can promote that to others. Thank you. http://creativetuesdays.blogspot.co.uk/p/guidelines-faqs.html

    I think you will really enjoy the next theme. And sort of ties into your hurricane post, actually! Glad you are ok.

    Reply
  4. Your pictures and words are beautiful and eerie … can’t imagine staying so close to the ocean. We weathered a hurricane 12 miles inland in Florida and that was scary … the water from our little lake was at the edge of our patio and the big fish were swimming around with their fins sticking up looking like sharks. Another story for another time. I have friends who live in North Carolina and they fared pretty well, but there were many who didn’t. So glad you were safe and are around to tell us about it.

    Andrea @ From The Sol

    Reply
  5. Hi Claudia, experiencing a tropical storm must be quite scary. We get storms here but nothing on that scale. Your photos are as beautiful as ever and I particularly like the one of the house (it’s got character). Your drawing of a tree and tree house would fit well in an old Enid Blyton story book.

    xx

    Reply
  6. I just realized I didn’t comment on this one! I was so busy looking at those photos and thinking WHOA — thankfully you’re both no worse for wear, but I can imagine it was not an entirely restful vacation with the house shaking! I cannot even imagine a hurricane. We will have windy days up here and you think the wrath of God is upon you, and then for us it’s only like 30, maybe 40 mph at it’s very worst. Which is nothing compared to the devastation a hurricane causes. Why are sunsets the prettiest after a storm? Isn’t that something.

    Reply

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