managers and policy makers, Rogers says. For 

 example, measuring soundside and oceanside 

 high-water marks will be useful as the state revises 

 flood plain maps. 



In addition, the new technical ability to 

 predict hurricane progress five days out opened 

 a window of opportunity for the U.S. Geological 

 Survey to measure ground elevations of dunes 

 before and after Isabel. 



"The amount of detailed information col- 

 lected is unprecedented," Spencer says. 



Gone Fishing 



As hurricanes go, Isabel was unusually dry, 

 dropping a mere 8 inches of rain at peak points 

 along her path. Hurricane Floyd in 1999 deluged 

 the coastal plain with 1 9 inches of relentless rain, 

 freshening sounds and tidal creeks in the Pamlico- 

 Albemarle Estuarine System, where water quality 

 and habitat conditions were adversely affected for 

 several months. 



Isabel's winds barely had subsided when Sea 

 Grant researchers were heading out to measure 

 her impact on the waterquality of the state's 

 important fisheries nurseries. 



Preliminary reports by Hans Paerl, of the 

 University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, are 

 surprising. Paerl's post-Isabel studies show that 

 the wet spnng and summer months that preceded 

 Hurricane Isabel delivered greater amounts of 

 freshwater and nutnents to the systems than the 

 hurricane did. 



While Isabel may not have contributed 

 acute water quality or habitat altering impacts, he 

 underscores that she is one in a sequence of hur- 

 ricanes that has struck with a "remarkable increase 

 in frequency since 1996." 



Increased tropical storms, nor'easters and 

 hurricanes could have a cumulative environmental 

 impact, he says, leaving estuaries and sounds in a 

 state of disequilibrium. 



Indications are that various levels of the food 

 chain may take multiple years to recover from large 

 and frequent disturbances. 



Paerl stresses the need for long-term moni- 

 tonng and assessment to detect trends, changes 

 and the full range of natural and human impacts 

 on the ecosystems. 



FerryMon is one example of an innovative 

 approach to monitoring waterquality that Paerl 

 and Duke University colleagues Joseph Ramus and 

 Larry Crowder devised in response to Hurricane 

 Floyd. 



Since then, in cooperation with the N.C. 

 Department ofTransportation's Ferry Division, 

 three ferries that traverse the Pamlico Sound and 

 Neuse River are equipped with automated flow- 

 through systems that sample near-surface water 

 on a daily basis. 



Crowder and his students were out on the 

 Pamlico Sound looking for signs of troubled wa- 

 ters the day after Isabel passed. They constructed 

 top-to-bottom water column profiles to detect 

 fresh and saltwater stratification and signs of 

 nutrient loading. 



A second cruise 1 days later at a different 

 sound location confirmed the good news: Fresh- 

 water input from Isabel was not an issue. There 

 was no evidence of stratification or low oxygen 

 levels that existed after Hurricane Floyd. 



'The take-home message is that each 

 hurricane differs in pathway, wind effect, and 

 freshwater input," Crowder says. 'There can be no 

 generalization." 



Alemories Linger* 



That may be so, but many North Carolinians 

 who have weathered decades of humcanes can't help 

 pointing out similarities. 



Nacie Peele, an 84-year-old resident of Hatteras 

 Village, places Isabel in the same class as the 1 933 hur- 

 ricane. It, too, arrived on high tide and brought walls 

 ofwaterto the small fishing village. 



"I was 13 at the time," he recalls. "Water came 

 in the house, along with mud and other stuff Itwas 

 a real mess. A neighbor sat the storm out with us." 

 He says the worst storm came in 1936. "It cut an inlet 

 through the island," Peele adds matter-of-factly. 



So, when Isabel carved a new inlet through the 

 narrow stretch of the barrier island, cutting off Hat- 

 teras Village from the island, Peele was not surprised. 

 Nordid he consider himself stranded until the inlet 

 was filled and road rebuilt. "I was home, safe and dry. 

 I'm a packrat, so I had plenty of food to wait it out." 



The fifth-generation waterman is philosophical 

 about life on the Outer Banks. "Seems we're always 

 fighting nature in one way or the other," he says, 

 recalling a string of hurricanes and nor'easters he has 

 survived through the years. 



Of course, he adds, the population on the Outer 

 Banks in the old days was sparse. There were few 

 homes and businesses to be washed away or buried 

 with sand, as was the case with Isabel. 



"They began to build on the beach in the 1 950s. 

 Durant Station Motel was the first one on the ocean 

 beach. More were built after that. They all went down 

 in Isabel. The whole works," hesays."l told my nephew 

 that one day everyone may have to move off Hatteras 

 Island." 



But until then, he is resolved to ride out whatever 

 storms come his way. "There is no place in the world 

 like the Outer Banks," he says. ^ 



COASTWATCH 15 



