Thursday, September 18, 2003

Hurricane Watch

Well, sometime around 2 PM tomorrow we should be experiencing what for us will be Tropical Storm Isabel. Being an almost life long shore resident, either for the summers or for the past ten years year round, I have lived through many Tropical Storms and Hurricanes. I kind of find them exciting and love to drive up to the beach and watch the awesome power of nature. It reminds me of how small we really are when I see 10 to 15 foot high swells crashing into the jetties and piers. Of course the fact that I live on the bay side rather than the ocean front gives allows me to view the impending weather with excitement rather than fear. Earlier this week my wife and were walking at the beach and folks were scrambling to nail up their 25 dollar a pop sheets of plywood to their ocean side windows.

The worst storm I lived through was a few years back. It was actually not a hurricane but a nor'easter. In fact it was the storm that was written in the book, The Perfect Storm. I was staying for a few days at my folks place in Avon-by the-Sea. The ocean had come up so far that it was washing on their front lawn which was a block west of the boardwalk. That storm depostit the beach on the road that runs along the Ocean for most of our area. It took out he Ocean Grove fishing pier and the Belmar boardwalk. 

Well, since this storm is supposed to make landfall in South Carolina, far south of New Jersey, we will just experience lots of wind, rain and big waves. I'll be driving to the beach later to take a look. Here are a couple of beach cams to keep an eye on things from the safety of the house:


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