Hurricane Ophelia

 

Image courtesy of the National Weather Service 

With his grandfather Norwood Frost's house and business in ruins in Salter Path, N.C., Daniel Frost, 6, who lives next door, helps remove debris from the home, which sustained 4 feet of water damage from Hurricane Ophelia. Norwood Frost, not pictured, who has lived on the property his entire life, said he only had water in the house after Hurricane Floyd and said the damage from Ophelia was the worst.

(Lawrence Journal World September 16, 2005)

It was 20 years ago this month that Hurricane Ophelia changed everything. There have been more severe hurricanes but coming on the heels of the onslaught of storms that started with the double whammy of Hurricanes Bertha and Fran in the summer of 1996, it was the straw that broke the camel’s back as far as my family having to make the difficult decision to part with our cottage on the Intracoastal Waterway which my father had purchased back in the 70s. 

It also happened between Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, both of which had a devastating impact on the Gulf coast. In fact, when I contacted FEMA for help, they laughed and hung up the phone. Those were far more dangerous storms but it didn’t make me any less homeless or in need of assistance.

I moved in with family, and left a job I’d held since 1998. It was also roughly within this time frame that we sold our family home at Sleepy Creek. That was the plan anyway since both my parents had passed but nevertheless it was a time of great upheaval. This was all the beginning of the next chapter of my life. I was 43 at the time.