Julian and Donna and Ernesto Too

The events of the past 24 hours are just screaming to be written – even though it is out of order, chronologically speaking.

We're at Waves, a village on the NC Outer Banks. We are at Camp Hatteras RV Park. So was Ernesto!

The storm is now moving north of here but still producing occasional rain with some wind. Between the wind and the rain, it was a very noisy night.

This morning around 7:30, we were having coffee in bed when the coach started to rock. Rock not shake! Pretty scary! It lasted for 5 to 10 seconds. We weren't convinced we were going to stay upright. This was nothing like any of the wind-related movement we had felt over night. What a relief when it stopped... and we were still standing.

When it was over, we looked out the front window to find a big trailer totally destroyed. The people next door to them were helping the victims out of the coach and into theirs. All of this with the pile of rubble and the driving rain.

Two ambulances responded. We think there were 4 adults and 2 children in the home. Julian went over and it appears they all survived with cuts, bruises, sprains, etc. One or two of them were taken to the hospital. We sure do hope for the best for them.

Those folks were very lucky to survive. It was apparently a tornado. Hurricanes often spawn tornadoes. The center of it probably missed us by 30 yards, going behind us. Since there was no other damage in the park, it probably lifted at about that same time.

This is a picture taken from the door of our coach. Follow the white canisters up the center of the photo to find the demolished rig. (Click on the pictures to see them larger.)


Here’s a closer view from the other side. I feel so bad for these people.

Word had it that the tornado had touched down in another of the RV parks just south of here, lifted and jumped over the houses in between, then came down again in our park. Go figure.

The roads are closed so we're probably stranded for a day or two. No matter, we were planning to be here through Monday anyway.

Our site was just low enough that we had a couple inches of standing water all around.

It’s hard to tell when all that water might go away, so we decided to move. We’ve just got that done and are glad to be in a drier location.

We’ve ventured out to the beach and it’s a lot different scene from two days ago when we got out in it to cool off after getting the coach set up. It’s a very mean looking sea!

If you are wondering why we stayed here, take a quick look at a North Carolina map. The Outer Banks are islands, connected by at least 3 bridges back to the mainland. When coming out here, we noticed signs on every one of them warning about the dangers of high winds. We weren’t about to take a high-profile vehicle back over them.

The other issue is: where would we go? The storm was heading right up the center of North Carolina. Heading west of here would have put us right in its direct path. There really was no choice but to ride it out. Thankfully, we were lucky enough to do that with nothing but a huge scare. We’ll get over that.

The bottom line is that we are fine. We’ve incurred no damage to the coach, no problems of any sort. We can only wish that would have been true for every one here.