Hurricane Bonnie, 1998
Dec 01, 2022
The peak of hurricane season always reminds me of the first hurricane my wife and I experienced on the Outer Banks. In August 1998 my wife, Bonnie, had just given birth to our first child. Less than 10 days after being born, Hurricane Bonnie (no relation to my wife) made landfall near Wilmington, NC.
​While my wife was tending to a newborn, I was getting a crash course on how to prepare a watersports business for a hurricane. I recall some of the employees asking me what they should do (hunker down or evacuate). I had no idea. I was making everything up as I went.
​The watersports business was in Duck, behind the Sunset Grill (back then it was called The Barrier Island Inn). We had a yard where we could store all the boats and trailers in Harbinger, across the Wright Memorial Bridge in Currituck County. Each time we grabbed a trailer to drive across the bridge the traffic got exponentially worse due to the mass exodus of visitors who had been ordered to evacuate.
​The process was, and still is, exhausting. After getting everything out of the water and stored to a point of satisfaction I got home and wondered what I should do with our house. My wife and I decided to board-up the east-facing windows. Bonnie went to the lumber yard (pre-Home Depot) and all they had left was 3/4", pressure-treated plywood. We figured we could use it again for some other project. What we didn't figure was how heavy these boards weighed while going up three flights of stairs. Back then I was young and still pretty strong, but carrying those boards by myself up to the top deck nearly broke me.
​While all this was going down my mother was staying with us to "help" with the baby. I thought I was raised by a pack of wild poodles so I'm skeptical how much "help" she'd provide. Just as traffic exiting the Outer Banks was at its peak, my mom declares that she has a map and she will be leaving. Her thinking being anywhere else must be safer than here. She was our first victim of hurricane sensationalism.
​After finishing with all the preparations this is what we saw. An approaching storm, it's track directly over us. Not sure what to expect, and we have a new born baby, we decide to evacuate. It's the last minute. On the upside, nobody was on the road.
We pack some things, grab our dog, and head towards Charlottesville, VA where we had lived for three years and knew people that would put us up. We're exhausted and only make it two hours away to Williamsburg, VA where we stop and get a motel room for the night.
​We eventually make it to Charlottesville the next day, catch up with friends, show off the baby, and head home a day later. We return to the beach and find minimal damage. The locals say it was mostly a non-event. We feel a little stupid. Like my wife, Hurricane Bonnie will only hurt you if you do something really dumb.
​One week later, Bonnie took our daughter and drove to Chattanooga to start a new job (one she was late to because of the baby). Oh, to be young and have that kind of energy.
Best wishes,
John Van Lunen
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