Goodbye, Arthur…. Hello, Bertha?

She's heading out to sea, but it's good that the Control Group is talking about her now. 

The group met last Friday for their first ever post-storm debriefing.

The upshot? All agreed that the group should’ve have been consulted earlier about Arthur, and all vowed to meet when the next storm is 4 or 5 days out. As it was, the first meeting of the Control Croup took place just 12 hours before Hurricane Arthur hit Ocracoke. By then, it was too late for the control group to weigh in about evacuation plans. Lesson learned: get the Control Group together the moment our coastline is in another “cone of probablility.”

Who knew that would happen so soon?

The Control Group will meet today, but I won’t be there. Once again, the press (which, around here, means Connie Leinbach and me) are expressly invited not to attend. We will get our information after the meeting from Hyde County PIO Sarah Johnson.

Connie and I were allowed at the July 25th control group meeting, but were asked beforehand not to speak.

“This isn’t a press conference,” John Fletcher told me in a phone call. “You can take notes, but not ask questions.” 

That policy was a slight improvement over the situation just after the storm when we were told that the control group meetings were closed to the press.

According to John, we got kicked out because Charles Tripp, who was here with the state emergency team, was strongly in favor of closing the meetings.

John himself “violently opposed” our exclusion. “I believe the press should have access,” he told me, back when I was trying to get into the air conditioned meetings on July 4th.

John shared that some of the local people in the group did not wish to be quoted, but, he said, “If you don’t want people to be mad by it, don’t say it. You should stand by what you say.”

What they were saying wasn’t even very controversial – just that the control group needed to be consulted earlier, and that, perhaps, a mandatory evacuation might have been a better idea. Connie and I both reported on that (for the Island Free Press and the Current, respectively). We also both took a stand to be included at the Control Group meetings.

You know, just like the Beastie Boys sang: “You gotta fight for your right to go to meetings!

We had a lot of support from our readers, who were eager for news after the storm, including many who pointed out that the press has a legal right to attend public meetings. (The irony of arguing for Freedom of the Press on Independence Day was not lost on us.) The issue was even discussed (and left hanging) at the last Hyde County board of commissioners meeting. No one seems clear on the issue and our inclusion is decided on a meeting-by-meeting basis.

At the Hurricane Arthur post-mortem (lucky me! I was there!), Hyde County Emergency Manager Justin Gibbs met in person with the Ocracoke Control Group. Ferry personnel chimed in on speaker phone.

Justin started off the meeting on a positive note by asking people what went right before, during, and after Hurricane Arthur. Deputy Jason Daniels thanked the group for putting the curfew and ban on alcohol sales into effect during the storm and its aftermath. He appreciated that support for the sheriff’s department.

The understatement-of-the-meeting award goes to the person who mentioned, “Tideland did well.”

County manager Bill Rich was happy with the communication, saying it was “fantastic” that the word got out about the voluntary evacuation and “70% of the visitors left.”

Justin felt that Hyde County did a good job with pre-staging for the storm, preparing resources (food, water, generators, medical supplies) that weren’t used, but could have been if the situation had been worse. He also was pleased with the re-entry process, the NC Emergency Management Incident team that the state sent, and the first-time use of scrolling message boards strategically placed around the island to help get information out.

What to improve when the inevitable happens again? Suggestions include:

• Activate Control Group earlier. (Say it loud and often!)
• Taking into consideration the extra time it takes to get people off the island be ferry and calling a mandatory evacuation before Dare County does. (Safety first, people!)
• More better communication – maybe consider a central 800-number for visitors to call. (Or tell people to check the Ocracoke Current’s Facebook page, ‘cause we rocked it with the info during Arthur.)
• A fuel truck on the island before the storm comes for the island’s generators.
• Call in the extra chippers for storm debris right away and/or have a central location to dump debris as we’ve had after other storms.
• Hold an Emergency Control Group planning meeting in the spring before hurricane season starts.
• Post-storm debriefings are also a fine idea.

There was much discussion about whether a voluntary evacuation is useful at all. Does it help to start with that and then move to a mandatory? Is voluntary ever enough, or should we take that option off the table? Everyone understands the reluctance to make a decision to evacuate during the height of the season, and everyone understands the risks of not evacuating. Every storm is different, but the Control Group’s m.o. is to err on the side of caution. Just because Arthur didn’t do much damage doesn’t mean the voluntary evacuation was enough. Ocracoke was just plain lucky.

And now here we are, facing the possibility of another storm, when we don’t even have the tree branches cleared from the last one. (That’s a whole ‘nother story.) But at least the Control Group is already on the case!

Does anyone else feel a sense of déjà vu? Didn’t we have a run-in with a Bertha before? Has the National Hurricane Center no imagination? Can someone buy them a book of baby names, please?

Brings to mind another great song: “That's why if you please, I am on my bended knees, Bertha don't you come around here anymore.”