Irene

Go away! 

New Bern is on the Neuse River, where it is about 1 mile wide you can see on the map where it opens into Pamlico Sound.  Downtown New Bern doesn't usually flood from rain, it floods from wind.

Water piles up in the sound and as the rivers get narrower there is no where for the water to go so it floods. As far as tides, we don't have tides in New Bern but if the tide is high at the beach it means more water to be pushed into the sound, ergo more water for New Bern! We ARE lucky that is has been dry here, unlike New England.

Our house is about 100 feet from the river.  We built our house/studio in 2007 and one of the things we told the architects was that it needed to be hurricane proof, as much as anything can be. We will see how well they did! That being said, we LOVE our location. Right now I'm laid up so other than going to the hospital/doctor I've been home. But it's not a bad place to be stuck. I grew up on the water and can sit and look at it forever.

We have spent the past couple days getting things up off the floor on the 1st floor, which is our pottery, Michaels workshop, and garage. We'll take the car Downtown and put it behind Carolina Creations which is 8 feet higher than the 1st floor of our house. Just finished loading a kiln and are firing it now. It takes 10 hours to fire so should be done before we start to have high water. If it gets wet it will be ok once it's fired. When it's done we'll go unplug all the kilns and hope for the best. We think they'll dry out ok. Too big to move.

Our biggest concern is our gallery. It is at 14 feet but if we have a 10-11 foot storm surge, that's a little too close for comfort. We'll keep our fingers crossed!! This is what the city is saying "hurricane winds expected to reach around the center of the hurricane 70 miles and tropical storm winds reaching 290 miles around the eye of the storm." We are about 40 miles west of Cape Lookout, 100 miles west of Cape Hatteras.

At 11 am this is what the WITN website says -
POTENTIAL LOCAL IMPACTS: Note: These potential impacts are based solely on the latest NHC forecast and certainly could change with future updates. Most of the listed impacts will occur from Saturday morning through Saturday evening.
WINDS: Hurricane force winds of 75 mph up to 100+ mph are possible primarily east of highway 17. Winds of 40 to 75 mph are possible from I-95 to highway 17. The further east you are the greater the wind threat. Widespread power outages are likely, along with some structural damage...especially east of highway 17.
WATER RISES: Water level rises of 6 to 10 feet are possible over the Sounds and along the Outer Banks. 4 to 7 foot rises are possible up the Pamlico and Neuse Rivers. Low lying areas will be susceptible to flooding.
RAINFALL: 3 to 6" of rain will be possible west of highway 17, with 6 to 12" possible east of highway 17. Widespread flash flooding will be likely. Be extra careful around stream, creeks, culverts, and any areas of running water.

It keeps talking about Hwy 17. Hwy 17 is 1 block from our house. At this time they were saying it would go between Cape Lookout and Ocracoke.

One good thing, the worst is supposed to be between 6 am and 6 pm on Saturday. It will be light out, there is nothing worse than a landfalling hurricane at night.

Brian at the Sun Journal was down yesterday and took photos of Michael putting up the storm shutters. here is a link to his photo. It's our first hurricane since we have had them. They are stamped "approved for Dade county" so we're hoping they'll do their job. Won't do much for flooding though.

Lou took some photos too., thanks Lou!

Way to go Michael!

Will post again to let you know how we fared.