Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, August 31, 1993 TAG: 9308310238
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: PAIGE WILLIAMS KNIGHT-RIDDER NEWSPAPERS
DATELINE: NAGS HEAD, N.C. LENGTH: Medium
Or crept.
Traffic moved so slowly that motorists drove with their doors open for air, got out and introduced themselves to one another and sauntered ahead for snapshots of the emergency exodus.
Meandering beachward at 7 mph, Emily moved faster than the people in her path.
Bags packed, windows boarded, belongings battened down, as many as 100,000 people embarked as early as 6 a.m. on the bumper-ride journey inland.
This many people haven't abandoned the 100-mile thread of barrier islands since Hurricane Bob brushed the Outer Banks in August 1991.
From the southernmost tip at Hatteras Island, they traveled single-file Monday up North Carolina 12, past the lighthouse at Buxton, across the bridges arching Roanoke Sound and the Alligator River and westward along U.S. 64: cars and trucks and vans brimming with people, luggage racks stuffed, beach chairs strapped to the front bumper, bicycles to back.
"LOOK OUT EMILY, HERE WE COME!" warned white shoe polish on the windows of a Pennsylvania van - headed for land, not sea.
By early afternoon, Mark Gurganus, 30, had his dogs, Black and Blue, loaded into a pickup with his prized electric guitars, family photos and Batman keepsakes.
"I'm leaving 'cause I don't want to die," he said, not kidding. Gurganus has what he calls premonitions once a year, and he believes them. Last week he dreamt of a killer hurricane and worries that it might come true, just like the dream about his grandfather's surgery last summer.
He solemnly shook hands with housemate Tim Brayboy and friend Rusty McGill. "Good luck, man," he said, and he left, hating that he couldn't fit his surfboard and stereo into the truck, too.
He joined those leaving and left Brayboy to brave the storm. Better than he recalls Hurricane Bob, Brayboy remembers last October's northeaster that also emptied the Outer Banks of most of its 35,000 year-round residents and kept them from their homes for three weeks.
"Why should I stay away from my house for three weeks because of one day?" said Brayboy, 26, who decided to confront Emily from a friend's beach condo.
At Cape Hatteras, emergency officials asked people to stay or go by 8 p.m. Monday.
Most left gladly. By 8:30 p.m., officials estimated that all but about 1,500 of Hatteras Island's 15,000 to 20,000 residents and tourists had evacuated.
Fifteen people in five families from Burlington, N.J., debated all day whether to ride out the storm.
"On one hand, you look forward to the excitement," said Bob Darrah, 47. "But on the other hand, the comfort level won't be good."
They decided to stay in their three-level oceanfront cottage in Avon - despite the evacuation order, despite the hurricane warning issued Monday.
"We feel like we're still safe," Darrah said. "If we felt we weren't safe, we wouldn't be here."
Others packed up immediately after hearing of the evacuation on the news or on loudspeakers on fire trucks that drove island streets.
Lisa Rogers, 35, of Leesburg, Va., stayed through Hurricane Bob in Nags Head two years ago.
She thought better of it this time.
"When it starts raining through windows that are closed, you get a little unnerved," she said, readying to leave Avon for Richmond.
Some time today will come the point of no return - or no leaving, rather - because bridges will close and stragglers will brave Emily the best way they can.
"No way are we just going to pack everything and leave," said Cookie Daniels, 25, who was nailing plywood over windows in a leopard-fur bathing suit and cat-eye sunglasses. "I was born here. My family's been here 200 years. I've never left for a hurricane, not for Gloria, not for Bob. I'm hard-core, I reckon."
She set her TV in a closet. She parked her car in the cemetery, the highest ground around. She bought groceries, grabbed candles and headed to a friend's concrete and steel condo.
"We're just gonna take this as a day off."
by CNB