Palm trees and pirate flags at the nightclub Seacrets in Ocean City take the brunt of the ever-increasing wind from Hurricane Irene on Saturday afternoon. / THOMAS MELVILLE/THE DAILY TIMES
OCEAN CITY -- The officials and residents who stayed in Ocean City despite a resortwide evacuation were hunkered down indoors Saturday evening and into this morning waiting out the myriad of damages Hurricane Irene was expected to bring.
They were treated to what Worcester County Emergency Services Director Joe Theobald referred to as a "three-course meal" of sustained hurricane-force winds at about 79 mph with gusts up to 90 mph, a 4-6 foot storm surge and 8-12 inches of rainfall. The "meal" was expected to peak for as long as six hours, starting at 9 p.m. and calming down between 2-3 a.m. today, according to Mayor Rick Meehan.
The rains and increased winds came as a precursor to the heavier action starting early Saturday morning, bringing the first indications of the storm after an eerily quiet and meteorologically clear Friday night. The hurricane was expected to hover in the higher points of the Category 1 designation, but Theobald said it could make it to Category 2.
Ocean City Police Chief Bernadette DiPino said about 300 nonemergency personnel had stayed in town in disobeyance of Meehan's mandatory evacuation order, based on a door-to-door check executed Friday. A typical late-August weekend sees a population of at least 200,000 in the resort, she said.
DiPino said those who remained may not have been able to get town assistance in case of an emergency after about 5 p.m., when gale force winds were expected to kick in. They couldn't risk their officers, especially in light of an evacuation order that was very publicized.
"When those winds hit about 50 miles per hour, we call them out," said Theobald of the police and firefighters who patrolled the area through the day.
Two Bulgarian students named Mustafa and Ianis opted to stay, even though they are among the group of international students who were the first ordered to evacuate on Thursday morning. They withheld their last names, so as not to get in trouble with the agencies who helped them acquire a work assignment on the coast for the summer. On Saturday afternoon, they were standing outside on the balcony of their apartment on Philadelphia Avenue, watching the wind and rain.
They noted that many of the other international students had left two days before for a shelter in Baltimore, and that they felt better in their temporary home in town.
"It's hard to make a decision when you don't know what's going to happen," said Ianis, who said his main storm-related concern was that the roof of their building might fly off.
If conditions got too dicey, they planned to go across the Route 50 Bridge to the shelter at Stephen Decatur High School. They had a couple other friends down the street who had a car who would pick them up if they all decided to leave.
Phil Stoer, a 24-year-old local who works at the Holiday Inn on 17th Street, wanted to be around for Irene. He stayed in town with about 30 other employees to help prepare the building for the storm. They'd spent most of Friday filling bags with sand and lugging them up on the beach in an effort to prevent flooding of the hotel's ground floor.
He and the other employees planned to ride the storm out in hotel rooms, so they could help begin needed repairs as soon as the storm allowed.
"How many times are you going to have the opportunity to be oceanfront for a hurricane?" Stoer said, adding he didn't think the damages would be as extensive as the worst-case scenarios people had been predicting.
In some cases, people who had originally planned to stay had left after experiencing second thoughts.
Among them was Andrew Webster, a 23-year-old who lives on 38th Street. Some of his friends had decided to leave, and he didn't want to stick around alone.
"We wanted to stick around so we could go surfing, but we got kicked out of the water anyway," Webster said.
City Manager Dennis Dare spent the storm at the Public Safety Building on 65th Street with many other city officials, including Meehan, Theobold, council members and representatives from all of the city's emergency service entities. They had set up an outpost, and Councilwoman Mary Knight and many others came through the doors Saturday morning wielding trays of food for everyone.
Dare said any preparations that could have been taken were already in place by Saturday morning, and that the town was already looking toward recovery before the storm even hit.
"It's just a matter of how hard it hits," Dare said. "Some things are going to float that have never floated before, and some things are going to blow that have never blown before. It's just a matter of what the weaknesses are."
Senator Jim Mathias stayed at his family home in town until about 11 a.m. Saturday morning, monitoring the storm for Royal Plus, Inc. a disaster management company he works for. Mathias often travels to hurricane and other natural disaster sites for the company, and was heading to Snow Hill, where they had set up a command center to continue monitoring the storm and to contribute to recovery efforts.
Mathias' two children had left the area earlier in the week to avoid the storm, he said.
"My family is safe, and Kathy is up in Heaven, so she's watching us," Mathias said of his wife, a longtime city employee who recently passed away.
Meehan was optimistic about the way the town's structures might handle the storm, saying Ocean City's buildings typically exceed code requirements. He and DiPino also said they didn't think looting would be a problem during or after the storm.
"That's just not the kind of community we have in Ocean City," DiPino said.
An assessment of the damage would immediately follow the storm, and would be used to make a decision on when people might be allowed back across the bridges into town to survey their property, Meehan said.
"This is Ocean City. We usually get through it," Theobald said.
smuska@dmg.gannett.com
410-213-9442, ext. 14
They were treated to what Worcester County Emergency Services Director Joe Theobald referred to as a "three-course meal" of sustained hurricane-force winds at about 79 mph with gusts up to 90 mph, a 4-6 foot storm surge and 8-12 inches of rainfall. The "meal" was expected to peak for as long as six hours, starting at 9 p.m. and calming down between 2-3 a.m. today, according to Mayor Rick Meehan.
The rains and increased winds came as a precursor to the heavier action starting early Saturday morning, bringing the first indications of the storm after an eerily quiet and meteorologically clear Friday night. The hurricane was expected to hover in the higher points of the Category 1 designation, but Theobald said it could make it to Category 2.
Ocean City Police Chief Bernadette DiPino said about 300 nonemergency personnel had stayed in town in disobeyance of Meehan's mandatory evacuation order, based on a door-to-door check executed Friday. A typical late-August weekend sees a population of at least 200,000 in the resort, she said.
DiPino said those who remained may not have been able to get town assistance in case of an emergency after about 5 p.m., when gale force winds were expected to kick in. They couldn't risk their officers, especially in light of an evacuation order that was very publicized.
"When those winds hit about 50 miles per hour, we call them out," said Theobald of the police and firefighters who patrolled the area through the day.
Two Bulgarian students named Mustafa and Ianis opted to stay, even though they are among the group of international students who were the first ordered to evacuate on Thursday morning. They withheld their last names, so as not to get in trouble with the agencies who helped them acquire a work assignment on the coast for the summer. On Saturday afternoon, they were standing outside on the balcony of their apartment on Philadelphia Avenue, watching the wind and rain.
They noted that many of the other international students had left two days before for a shelter in Baltimore, and that they felt better in their temporary home in town.
"It's hard to make a decision when you don't know what's going to happen," said Ianis, who said his main storm-related concern was that the roof of their building might fly off.
If conditions got too dicey, they planned to go across the Route 50 Bridge to the shelter at Stephen Decatur High School. They had a couple other friends down the street who had a car who would pick them up if they all decided to leave.
Phil Stoer, a 24-year-old local who works at the Holiday Inn on 17th Street, wanted to be around for Irene. He stayed in town with about 30 other employees to help prepare the building for the storm. They'd spent most of Friday filling bags with sand and lugging them up on the beach in an effort to prevent flooding of the hotel's ground floor.
He and the other employees planned to ride the storm out in hotel rooms, so they could help begin needed repairs as soon as the storm allowed.
"How many times are you going to have the opportunity to be oceanfront for a hurricane?" Stoer said, adding he didn't think the damages would be as extensive as the worst-case scenarios people had been predicting.
In some cases, people who had originally planned to stay had left after experiencing second thoughts.
Among them was Andrew Webster, a 23-year-old who lives on 38th Street. Some of his friends had decided to leave, and he didn't want to stick around alone.
"We wanted to stick around so we could go surfing, but we got kicked out of the water anyway," Webster said.
City Manager Dennis Dare spent the storm at the Public Safety Building on 65th Street with many other city officials, including Meehan, Theobold, council members and representatives from all of the city's emergency service entities. They had set up an outpost, and Councilwoman Mary Knight and many others came through the doors Saturday morning wielding trays of food for everyone.
Dare said any preparations that could have been taken were already in place by Saturday morning, and that the town was already looking toward recovery before the storm even hit.
"It's just a matter of how hard it hits," Dare said. "Some things are going to float that have never floated before, and some things are going to blow that have never blown before. It's just a matter of what the weaknesses are."
Senator Jim Mathias stayed at his family home in town until about 11 a.m. Saturday morning, monitoring the storm for Royal Plus, Inc. a disaster management company he works for. Mathias often travels to hurricane and other natural disaster sites for the company, and was heading to Snow Hill, where they had set up a command center to continue monitoring the storm and to contribute to recovery efforts.
Mathias' two children had left the area earlier in the week to avoid the storm, he said.
"My family is safe, and Kathy is up in Heaven, so she's watching us," Mathias said of his wife, a longtime city employee who recently passed away.
Meehan was optimistic about the way the town's structures might handle the storm, saying Ocean City's buildings typically exceed code requirements. He and DiPino also said they didn't think looting would be a problem during or after the storm.
"That's just not the kind of community we have in Ocean City," DiPino said.
An assessment of the damage would immediately follow the storm, and would be used to make a decision on when people might be allowed back across the bridges into town to survey their property, Meehan said.
"This is Ocean City. We usually get through it," Theobald said.
smuska@dmg.gannett.com
410-213-9442, ext. 14
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