Tropical Storm Hanna aftermath

Published 6:22 pm Monday, September 8, 2008

For the most part, Tropical Storm Hanna spared the Roanoke-Chowan region of any major damage.

Along the Chowan River in Hertford and Bertie counties, a storm surge of three to five feet was reported.

The surge demolished several piers in the Colerain area and did water damage to one home in Tunis.

Hertford County Emergency Management Director Charles Jones told the Roanoke-Chowan News-Herald that he had visited the Tunis community on Monday and noted the water line.

“The water did not reach the height to go into the houses or mobile homes and so far as I understand there was only slight water damage to one home,” Jones stated.

He continued, “Everything was kind of minor, like we expected. We had a few sporadic power outages, but Dominion Power and Roanoke Electric had brought in additional crews from outside the area and they were jumping on those outages really fast. They did a good job getting the power back on quickly.”

Bertie County Emergency Management Director Rickey Freeman echoed those statements, reporting that Bertie County experienced little other than downed trees and a few power outages.

“There was no more here than a few trees down and some spotted power outages. Nothing major, thank goodness. Overall, we fared pretty well. There were no reports of any major damages,” Freeman stated.

Northampton County Emergency Management Coordinator Tim Byers said his county fared well.

“We lost electricity in Jackson because of a fallen tree,” said Byers.

The power outage forced the Emergency Operations Center, where officials can keep in direct contact with emergency responders, to run on a generator.

Other than that, Byers said the county only saw a few broken tree limbs. There was no major flooding or damage reported.

“We were really fortunate the storm lost circulation (as it came through the area),” he said.

The center of the tropical storm, which made landfall early Saturday morning packing 70 mph winds near the North Carolina-South Carolina state line, tracked a bit further west than anticipated.

That track basically left all of eastern North Carolina out of the heavy rain earlier forecasted for the area. Early reports had the local area receiving around two inches (3-to-5 inches were expected). The bulk of the local rain fell Friday night from moisture associated with the outer bands of the tropical storm.

However, the wind was a factor, although it didn’t leave much damage in its wake. Wind gusts were reported as high as 48 mph at the Edenton airport. There was a gust reaching 56 mph at the Manteo airport and one measured at 43 mph just across the state line at the Suffolk, Va. airport.

(R-C News-Herald Staff Writers Amanda VanDerBroek and Thadd White contributed to this story.)