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cenes from Oriental on Wednesday August 31.

A welcome four-letter word. The Village Food Emporium put out the OPEN sign Wednesday morning at 8, along with a single, handwritten sheet of paper outlining the scaled-back menu. Owner Bama Lutes Deal, seen in the door’s reflection, says she was awaiting a delivery of food today but was happy to be open in the meantime

Bama Lutes Deal flicks of a piece of Irene leaf debris from the door of her Village Food Emporium. She opened for business Wednesday morning at 8 for the first time since last Friday.

Farther down Broad Street, Brantley Norman was anxious to reopen his Village Restaurant, but couldn’t because there was still no electricity from Progress Energy. It’s the longest he’s been closed, he says, in all the years he’s run the restaurant since 1978. He was looking to be open to feed customers over the upcoming Labor Day weekend. He’s thrown all his food away he says but could get a delivery within a day.

Brantley and Sil Norman at the kitchen door of their Village Restaurant which remains closed because it’s not yet back on the grid. They’ve been running generators to their cooling equipment as per health department guidelines. SIl said she wanted CP&L to get the power back on. Brantley reminded her that it’s now called, Progress Energy. Sil allowed that there were other names, too. Brantley said that he was sure they were working on it as best they could.

Brantley Norman waits. He says his restaurant did not get any water in it during Irene. He’s still closed though because he has no electric power from Progress Energy yet.

Brantley’s Village Restaurant and the official sign from the county that kept it and other restaurants closed while the electric power was off.

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A porch on Hodges Street where a carpet dries out on two rockers. All over town and in the county, similar scenes play out. What’s not airing out is being pitched out at curbside.

One casualty of Hurricane Irene: a blue jay in a South Water Street yard. While the air in Oriental has been buzzing with generators, chainsaws and other tools, we have not heard as many birds as before.

Oriental Town Manager Bob Maxbauer in front of his home on Neuse Drive. On Friday night, part of a tree in his yard snapped in the winds and took down power lines attached to the pole behind him in this photo. He had just been about to hitch up a trailer full of tools and take it out of the yard and says if he’d been there 2 minutes earlier, he’d have been under the wires. As it turns out, this was the last place that crews working for Progress Energy had to fix in order to restore power to the eastern section of the Old VIllage. The power came back on on Wednesday night.

Pile of pilings and docks in front of Deaton’s Yacht Sales on Neuse Drive.

In the yard of Deaton Yacht Sales Wednesday afternoon, crews from Eastern Propane retrieved propane tanks. Oriental Town Manager Bob Maxbauer says that during the hurricane he watched from his home across the street as a leak in one of the tanks sent it zooming back and forth thru the storm surge waters that covered the yard and Neuse Drive.

A scene repeated everywhere

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Two new air-conditioning units at Leslie and Dan Allen’s home on Neuse Drive. They floated off their stands during the storm surge from Hurricane Irene. The water came a few inches in to their home’s first floor. The part of the house at left was blown open by the surge.

Dan Allen says he thought that because two of their cars were convertibles it would be best to put them up on blocks in the protection of their garage on Neuse Drive. It worked until something knocked in to the stands and then one car tapped in to another. Both had water damage and are likely totaled. They called their insurance company on Sunday and were still waiting for a visit on Wednesday.

Dan Allen’s workshop was in this part of his home on Neuse Drive. Water flooded the living quarters and two cars belonging to him and his wife Leslie. The loss he was feeling most, though, were two Chesapeake Lightcraft West River kayaks that he had made. They were holed when the surge waters burst in to his workshop/boat shed. Leslie Allen says it’s a breezeway or carport now.

One visible problem in electric service is on Freemason Street where the large oak that went over Saturday morning also took with it a power pole. Homes in that area – including the Cartwright House – have been without power since Friday night.

A lineman from Smith Electric Company of Shelby works on a replacement power pole put in place on Wednesday afternoon on Freemason Street. It was an important link in getting power restored. (The final link was at a pole on Neuse Drive.) Power was restored to the area in between Freemason and Whittaker Creek Wednesday night.

Foul weather fowl. While most birds made themselves scarce during Hurricane Irene (they have since returned) this cement goose stuck around. It is dressed by someone to meet the season and lives in a cemetery on Silverbrook Road. No word on whether it wore these foulies during the storm.

Street light on Link Lane. Almost literally. The lamp and pole had fallen as a result of the hurricane but has stayed lit even as power to nearby homes was still out.

Posted Wednesday August 31, 2011 by Melinda Penkava