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Re: Post Hurricane Floyd Conditions




     
I would like to echo John's description of Floyd's aftermath in southern NC.  
Structural damage was minimal for the most part.  Long Beach seems to be the 
area that was hardest hit.  A 130mph gust was reported from Wrightsville Beach, 
but most areas experienced winds of only 80-100mph.  The Wrightsville/Wilmington
was in the eye from about 3:30-4:30am.  The winds on the backside of the eye 
were much stronger than those of the frontside.   This was an observation and 
evidenced by the direction of the trees that fell.

As John mentioned, many people will remove an entire tree if one limb was 
broken.  I have also observed something a little more dramatic.  Many people in 
this area remove not only leaning or damaged trees, but they remove all of the 
trees that are anywhere near structures.  Maybe this is a good idea for the very
cautious--it will likely be my house with a tree through the roof as I choose to
leave all of my trees and hope for the best.

The southern NC beaches experienced a tremendous amount of overwash which has 
created great expanses of open bare sand, prime habitat for beach-nesting terns,
skimmers and the 2 prs. of piping plovers that nested just north of Wilmington. 
This is especially true for the undeveloped barrier islands which should have 
good conditions for during next year's breeding season. 

The impact of the flooding will certainly be something to watch, both the 
condition of habitat and the food available for birds.

Walker Golder
National Audubon Society-NC
wgolder@audubon.org

______________________________ Reply Separator _________________________________
Subject: Post Hurricane Floyd Conditions 
Author:  "John Fussell" <jfuss@bmd.clis.com>  at INTERNET
Date:    9/21/99 9:15 PM


I've got a couple of e-mails suggesting 
that I describe for other CarolinaBirders 
conditions on the coast post-Floyd, both 
infrastructure-wise and environment-wise.
     
I should stress that the only area I've seen 
is around southern Carteret County and the 
adjacent Bogue Banks.
     
Along the ocean beaches of Bogue Banks and
the northern (south-facing) shore of Bogue Sound, 
peak winds associated with the storm were probably 
right around minimal hurricane force (sustained winds
of 75mph), maybe a little less.  In more protected areas, 
winds were less.
     
There was little damage to structures from wind--I saw
some sections of tin roofs stripped off, a couple of chimneys 
down, some (apparently poorly applied) vinyl siding stripped 
off, etc.
     
There was definitely some significant erosion along the 
oceanfront of Bogue Banks.  Along Atlantic Beach, where 
there was a wide berm from recent dredging projects, 
there was no damage to structures from storm surge. 
However, from Pine Knoll Shores west to Emerald Isle,
a few structures were damaged to the point that they 
cannot be rebuilt.  However, based on what I've heard 
and read, many, many structures that were not 
severely damaged now have no dunes or berm between
them and the water--they are practically over the water 
at high tide--and now very vulnerable to another storm. 
Damage would undoubtedly have been much worse
except that the storm surge came at almost exactly 
the time of low tide.
     
Two oceanfront fishing piers were heavily damaged 
by the extrremely large surf.
     
In terms of environmental "damage":  there was
a lot of salt spray damage, but much less than from 
Fran--I think much of the damaged vegetation this 
year will recover by next season.  Based on what
I see, what really has damaged the vegetation is 
man's response to the storm--a neighbor went out 
and saw a live oak with a broken limb--he then 
cut down the whole tree--I've seen many examples 
of this.
     
I might add that in nature storms such as this help 
to maintain maritime forests by killing off competing 
"inland" species.  I've been very impressed in my 
yard the last two years (following Bertha and Fran) 
by the large numbers of germinating cherry-laurels, 
live oaks, and laurel oaks.
     
I noticed how at Fort Macon State Park storms 
Bertha and Fran actually improved habitat for 
Painted Buntings by creating openings in the 
live oaks, cedars, etc. that became overgrown 
with dense growths of vines after a year or two.
     
And earlier I mentioned how storms such as Dennis 
and Floyd help improve habitat for Piping Plovers 
and other ground-nesting water birds at sites like 
Portsmouth Island and Core Banks by improving 
nesting substrates and (temporarily) causing 
declines in populations of mammalian predators.
     
                                John Fussell
                                Morehead City, NC
                                jfuss@bmd.clis.com