Ernesto

Ernesto ploughed through Norfolk, the center of the storm passing right over our heads. Sounds scary right? Ernesto was back down to being a tropical depression when he hit us; I drove downtown to work just after he'd passed by - not because I needed to wait for him to leave, but because I didn't need to go to work that early. There was a little flooding, but we didn't even lose power. Well, there was a lot of flooding, but we didn't have much where we were.
Ernesto actually came at Hampton Roads from the best possible direction - over land. But as it continued up the bay, it had more water to push and hit a high pressure system, that compacted it, driving up the wind speeds. By the time he made it to my grandparents on the Norther Neck, he was dealing damage somewhat like Isabel.
We drove up Sunday to help my grandparents dig out of what Ernesto left behind.






We took around 100 bags of debris to the dump, and that still leaves half of the pile of sea grass in front of the cottage (another 50 bags or so). The boat losses were high, because Ernesto wasn't supposed to be so bad - but no one anticipated what he'd manage to do up in the northern bay - they had 90 mph winds in Baltimore. This was certainly not a Katrina - but I think we underestimated Ernie just a bit.