Karen a reminder that hurricane season is not over

Published 7:06 pm Monday, September 23, 2019

Eastern North Carolina isn’t out of the woods yet when it comes to hurricane threats.

Tropical Storm Karen has maximum sustained winds of 40 mph and is headed due north to Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands on Tuesday. By Friday, the storm will likely stall, east of the Bahamas, but what happens after that could be of concern to eastern North Carolinians.

“Hopefully, it will just be a pleasant event that brings just a cool fall breeze,” said Chris Newkirk, chief of fire/emergency management with Beaufort County Emergency Services. “All the possibilities, all are something warranting our attention, but there are just a lot of uncertainties this far out.”

Historically, August through November is peak hurricane season for the region. While Hurricane Irene hit in late August 2011, Hurricane Florence, by far the most impactful of recent hurricanes, occurred in mid-September last year.

Though just two weeks ago, Hurricane Dorian skimmed the coast of North Carolina, devastating Ocracoke and Hatteras with sound-side flooding after its eye passed, Newkirk said residents should not be lulled into thinking that eastern North Carolina won’t experience more than one storm a season.

“There’s various times in many of our lifetimes that we have been threatened by multiple storms in a hurricane season,” Newkirk said. “If we were to back up to the mid-’90s, there was a stretch where we were expecting two storms a year, because that’s what was happening. … It’s those thoughts that kind of slip away.”

Many will remember July 1996, when Hurricane Bertha hit eastern North Carolina as category 2 storm; a little over a month later, category 3 Hurricane Fran hit in the same general area. In early September of 1999, Hurricane Dennis dumped 15 inches of rain across eastern North Carolina, which set the stage for the major flooding caused by Hurricane Floyd just two weeks later.

“It’s kind of human nature, to some degree, to say, ‘Well, we dodged that bullet — we’re good ‘til next year,’” Newkirk said. “That’s one thing that I do sense, to some degree. The other thing is people are like ‘It’s October — we don’t have anything to worry about.’”

However, Hurricane Matthew swept through eastern North Carolina on Oct. 8, 2016.

Regardless, Newkirk said hurricane season is still in full swing and residents should not be lulled into complacency by the relatively small impact Hurricane Dorian made recently. Though Beaufort County did not experience the rainfall or storm surge forecasted for Hurricane Dorian, surrounding counties did.

“Being prepared and maintaining a state of preparedness are two different things. I personally like to maintain a state of preparedness, so nothing sneaks up on me,” Newkirk laughed. “Let’s not drop our guard. Let’s not overreact, but let’s not drop our guard. Let’s stay prepared and keep that in mind as we look at Karen over the next week.”