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T

he Bay River reached historically high water levels during Hurricane Irene. Some residents reported it was a foot and a half higher than in 2003’s Isabel. Isabel’s surge was so high that many thought it wouldn’t be repeated. That was not the case.

As was shown in Florence, you didn’t have to live at the water’s edge to be flooded by Irene. Away from the waterfront properties, many homes along the Florence-Whortsonsville Road , especially in Florence, got water in them.

Ted and Pat Morris a week after Hurricane Irene. During part of the hurricane, Ted perched on the wooden slat behind him, watching the historically high waters cover the farm. Part of the roof was peeled away by the winds, too.

For one couple the losses were not only in their house — they think it’s totaled — but in their barnyard, too. Pat and Ted Morris have a hobby farm just down the road from Days Corner. They have a donkey, a half dozen horses. Going in to Hurricane Irene they also had Pat’s garden and 40 hens and more than 20 cattle as well.

Pat Morris. Waters during Irene were chest high. Horses in the stables in the background survived. Part of the cow herd disappeared. The rest were sold, for want of hay and feed, in the week after Irene.

When Hurricane Irene hit, Pat was at her nursing job in James City. Ted kept her updated as the waters seeped in to their yard and then rose to Hurricane Isabel’s level. Then they rose more than anyone had seen there before.

The water got up to the screen of their porch door and poured in to the house. Ted used a canoe – flipping it more than once – to get across the yard to check on his animals. The horses, which can swim, were fine, up to their necks in water in their stalls. The cows did not fare as well.

On one canoe outing, Ted returned to the house to find that his generator, thought to be on a high spot in the backyard, flooded. Ditto his garage and the tools inside.

The stables had about 4 feet of water in them during Irene., putting the six horses neck deep. The horses survived. A quarter of the cattle herd did not and disappeared in the flood waters.

Ted’s truck had also been parked on high ground, at the far end of the farm, a spot that had always been high and dry. On one foray out, Ted found that it wasn’t high enough – Irene’s surge waters flooded the truck. The retired contractor fought his way back through the rising waters, holding on tight to the metal fencing of a horse corral before walking/swimming to a cow shed.

At Ted Morris’ farm. The horse corral that gave him a handhold in the storm. All six of his wife’s horses survived too. In the background, the back of the store at Days Corner.

That shed, says Ted Morris, is where he rode out the worst hours of Irene. The cows were gone. Perched on a cross board, above the water, he says he could look through an opening in a wall and watch the ocean that was covering his farm. Part of the tin roof of his shelter had peeled off in a long strip, flying in to the upper reaches of a tree. To protect himself from flying debris, Ted says, he covered his head with a bucket.

A vista on a hurricane. Ted Morris looking through the hole in the wall where he could watch Hurricane Irene cover the farmyard. A week later, smoke rose from the ruined bales of hay that they were burning.

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Posted Friday September 9, 2011 by Melinda Penkava

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