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anna is moving fast and has an expected landfall late Friday / early Saturday. On Wednesday veterans of hurricanes in Oriental were making preparations.

At the Provision Company, smoke rises as Ross Pease cuts line that’ll be used to better secure a customer’s boat. It’s a good bet that line will be a bigger seller than the Windscoops in coming days.

While hurricanes are usually associated with wind, in Oriental, more damage is typically done by rising flood waters that come during and after the hurricane. For that reason, a lot of the hurricane prep revolves around putting things that float high and dry, and securing boats in hurricane holes or in slips. Or taking them out of the water altogether.

With the hurricane coming, Ken Midyette wanted his boat, “Wee Chablis” out of the water. What he didn’t count on was having to go in to the water. On the first try Wednesday evening, the trailer — with boat on it — launched itself instead of following Ken’s Jeep up the Wildlife Ramp. A while later — with a latch fastened on the hitch this time — the boat and trailer were retrieved.

Jennifer Roe was putting her kayaks high and dry, days before Hanna’s arrival. It was a lesson learned from Isabel, when she kept them in their usual spot, a crawlspace under a porch. When the waters rose, the trapped kayaks bobbed and banged against the crawlspace door, knocking a hole in it.

Kayaks top a pile in Jennifer and Frank Roe’s garage. Also stored there, lawn furniture that might otherwise fly on the porch.

Eye anchors, sometimes called mobile home tiedowns, are useful for keeping things in place.

Grace Evans recalls watching her rainbarrels float away in one hurricane. (One, she says, ended up across the Neuse at Adams Creek.) Also lost to a flood surge was a favorite wheelbarrow. Now aware of the “flotability” of wheelbarrows, Grace says she’s planning to tuck her current one up on a shed roof beneath her porch.

Sometimes the things that need to be done don’t seem so obvious.

One of the first bits of ‘living close to sea level’ advice offered by Grosvenor Barber to some newcomers to the neighborhood, was to tie down the propane tank. At four feet tall, it didn’t look like it could move, but as he pointed out the lightness of the gas inside, it can float. Two serious eye achors — or mobile home tie-downs — now hold ours in place.

Usually, a boat can be found at the end of this dock, but with Hanna coming, the boat’s been taken out of the water. When you don’t know if a hurricane will make the water too high.. or two low, going to land when that’s still an option seems a way to hedge bets.

Meanwhile, some area residents get busy with screwdrivers on the docks. In advance of the hurricane, they take up some planks in the docks so that rising waters can pass thru, rather than force the entire dock up.

Past hurricanes can teach some arcane lessons. For anyone who has ducks, a bit of advice from Marsha Shirk: if you keep them in a pen, take them up off the ground. Contrary to what you might think, she says, a duck doesn’t float well in the rising flood waters. Something about its feathers having gotten too wet.

The advice for hurricane prep from NOAA includes having a Disaster Supply Kit which includes at least one gallon of water, per person per day, for 3-7 days and a battery powered weather radio. And charge up those cell phones now, while there’s power.

The tall boots come out, ready for whatever floods come our way.

Finally, we turned to one recent visitor to Oriental for a few words about hurricane prep. Before he retired and set out on travels with his wife VIckie – they passed through Oriental in May — Tom Matheson was the National Weather Service’s Warning Coordinator Meteorologist in Wilmington, NC.

Hurricanes, he says, are “a great expression of the natural world. What makes it a disaster is people not ready with the basic essentials and being badly located against water and wind. “ The most important thing to do, he says, is “‘Run From the Water, Hide From the Wind.’ The wind won’t kill you…it won’t suck the life out of you, but flying debris will- flying glass…ever been hit with an asphalt roof shingle? So hide from the wind in a secure structure…as long as you are not in the surge area, which for Hannah may not be too life threatening. The water will find you, though, if you are in the surge area…so Run From the Water.”

About a decade ago when a hurricane hit Wilmington, Vickie rode out a hurricane alone at their home while Tom was at work, following the track of the storm. At home, he says, “Vickie pulled two couches back to back and got between them with a flashlight and radio as the ceiling came down, so her idea is to have a back-up plan…and desperate people do desperate things.”

Hanna is not forecast to cause such extreme damage. But Hanna is likely to be a hurricane when she visits. Folks are getting prepared…

A final image – remembering Isabel:

From Sept 18, 2003. Hurricane Isabel’s surge added some 9 ft of water to town.

Posted Thursday September 4, 2008 by Melinda Penkava