Close Call

Saturday night we knew things were pretty scary, but never appreciated just how scary. Now Carol and I are home in our comfortable brick house watching the continuing news coverage about the NC tornadoes that night. One tornado, an EF3, touched down on Piney Green Drive in Camp Lejeune that night and caused massive damage to housing on the base. So I couldn't help but do a little research on Goggle Earth to see just how close we were to ground zero. A mere 9.3 miles !!!!!!!! This distance is huge in terms of escaping damage. But when it comes to being in the probable hit zone, we were right in there. There were 11 boats in Mile Hammock that night. The worst damage we saw was one boat dragging into another. I shudder to think what would have happened in the anchorage if this tornado was just 9.3 miles further to the south.

Mile Hammock

We spent two nights in the Mile Hammock anchorage (Camp Lejeune) in North Carolina. There were 8 sailboats who pulled in Friday afternoon and decided to ride out the passing of yet another cold front on Saturday evening. We know well that cold fronts in April can be very nasty in coastal North Carolina. Yesterday's was no exception. It passed over us right on schedule at 8:30 PM with gale force gusts and some rain. The scary part of these spring fronts is the possibility of tornadoes. So we started listening to our local New Bern PBS station around 6:00 pm for some Lake Woebegone and weather updates. The tornado sighting reports started right away. The reported locations are usually places we don't know like East Buttcrack, so we always have our North Carolina road map aboard. Of course we have yet to figure out what we would do if a tornado actually passed near or over us. Go for a swim I guess. Anyhow we are headed for Cedar Creek tonight and then home tomorrow. Yea!