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H

anna was still a Tropical Storm Thursday, but much of town was treating it as if it could become something more than that. Deatons and SailCraft boat yards were busy hauling boats out of the water, ane individual boat owners were securing lines.

Those docks at Deaton’s Yacht Service are usually crowded with boats. By Thursday evening, most had been lifted out of the water.

There was talk too, of just what Hanna might do. If the eye stayed far enough west, maybe, just maybe, Oriental would be subject to winds from the south which push water out of the creeks. In that scenario, we’d be spared the flooding that so often happens.

What’s more, two other hurricanes, Ike and Josephine, looked as if they too could come a-calling. Some residents approached that prospect with a calm. If we have to prepare for more than one storm in a season, Patti Rosencrantz said, “you might as well knock all three out at once.”

Here are some snapshots from Thursday, as Oriental prepared for Hanna.

Sails tied tightly and lines woven so they don’t come loose in whatever winds Hanna sends up Oriental’s Whittaker Creek. Most of the boats at Deatons were made storm ready, said Deaton’s office manager Linda McLean. Many boats, such as this one, were pulled out of the water and put up on stanchions.

Alan Arnfast and Paul Welles ready a sailboat to be raised by the TraveLift at SailCraft boat yard Thursday night. Alan says he’d pulled 20 boats out of the water and has at least another 4 to take out on Friday..

Fine weather for ducks. Two fine feathered friends gather at the shallow pool of water amid the gravel of the SailCraft boat yard.

Chances are the ducks will have more of a watering hole before long.

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At Cape Lookout Yachts, Corky Farley had her boat hauled out for the hurricane. It was going to be put up for sale, anyway, she said. Meanwhile, Sonny Conover, who owns the brokerage, says a potential buyer for the boat on the left wants to take it out for a sea trial on Friday as the bands of rain are expected.

Not an anchored boat in sight at Oriental’s harbor. Most would seek out a more enclosed hurricane hole up the creeks nearby. The absence of visiting sailboats in the harbor meant that the shrimp fishermen had the trawling grounds of the harbor to themselves.

A custom-made storm cover for a stained glass window went up Thursday morning at an Academy Street home.

Church parking lots on the higher ground in town are usually a refuge for those seeking a safe place to park their cars. This lot, at Gilgo and Ragan Roads, is not an option this hurricane.

Hurricanes Kersten, Molly and Kara. Kersten Paxton and Kara Ireland were practicing their cheerleading in front of the SIlos Restaurant Thursday evening. (“Our parents are inside,” they said.) The 8th graders had just made the cheerleading squad at Pamlico Middle School, which, like Pamlico High, is home to the “Hurricanes.” Their friend Molly Daly is on the soccer team.

Posted Friday September 5, 2008 by Melinda Penkava