Stranded in Rodanthe

LETTER FROM THE EDITOR

By Michelle Cassell
Editor

I went to Rodanthe on Hatteras Island, N.C., to celebrate my birthday. I came home with a story, and a debt of gratitude to an island I thought I already knew.

Before the Storm

On Sunday, Sept. 20, my dear friends Jan and Phil drove me to Rodanthe for a weeklong birthday celebration. Our four-story house, complete with an elevator, sat directly on the Pamlico Sound. That evening, we headed to a seafood bar that looked as though the Board of Health should have condemned it years ago. The king crab legs, steamed shrimp and Bloody Mary, however, were perfect.

The first days were everything the Outer Banks promises: warm September sunshine, a still, glassy sound and a sky that stretched forever. We shopped in Nags Head and explored Rodanthe and Avon. In Buxton, I learned that Gee Gee, my favorite lady at the bookshop, had died in January. We stopped for bait at Frank and Fran’s, where they fixed Phil’s line the way they always do, and fished from the Rodanthe pier. Phil caught the only fish all afternoon, maybe six inches long. Below us, a bride in a full gown posed for pictures on the beach while the pier shuddered under each rolling wave.

View from the pier before the storm. Photo by Michelle Cassell

The forecast called for gale-force winds, but early projections showed the storm curving out to sea before tracking north toward New Jersey and Boston. I wasn’t concerned. After 10 years reporting for The Coastland Times, working with Dare County Emergency Management and riding out plenty of storms, I trusted my experience. Jan wasn’t so certain. If N.C. 12 overwashed and the power failed, we would have no way off the island.

On Wednesday, a longtime Rodanthe resident at a small gift shop—across the street from my former Coastland Times colleague Mary Helen Goodloe-Murphy—gave us the local forecast: the storm would overwash N.C. 12, and we should expect to stay until Monday. Jan and I walked down to see the ocean. Waves rose like gray walls, and wind-driven sand lashed our faces so hard we could not keep our eyes open without glasses. Jan and Phil packed up and left that afternoon. I stayed. My stepdaughter and her family were due Thursday, and my daughter and hers on Friday. Honestly, I thought watching the storm might be kind of cool.

That evening I savored my solitude. The sky was still sunny, but the wind picked up with each passing minute. I cooked pasta with the pesto Jan had left for me, enjoyed a movie and went to bed.

The beach by Wednesday evening. Photo by Michelle Cassell

During the Nor’easter

Sometime in the night, a roar of wind jolted me awake. The house shuddered under each violent gust. Four floors up, my bed trembled; water sloshed in the toilet; the elevator doors hammered in their frame. I crept to the front windows. Beyond the glass, enormous waves reared out of the darkness, their foaming white crests crashing one after another. I retreated to bed, pulled a pillow over my head and waited for the house to stop shaking.

By Thursday morning, the forecast had become a warning. The gale had swollen into a full nor’easter, far stronger than anyone had predicted, and 17- to 19-foot waves had torn N.C. 12 apart at Pea Island. My stepdaughter’s family reached Richmond before they were forced to turn back. I told myself I had weathered storms before, that I knew this island and understood its moods. But the confidence I had clung to the day before now felt dangerously close to arrogance. The truth settled over the house, cold and inescapable: I had no car, little food, and no way off the island. No one was coming. For the first time, I wondered whether staying had been more than foolish—and whether I had realized it too late.

Through the storm, I could barely make out Liberty Gas Station and Island Convenience, once owned by Mac Midget, whom I had covered as a reporter and who had been close friends with my old publisher, Frances Meekins. I stared at the phone, knowing that calling meant admitting experience would not save me. Finally, I dialed. Mac’s daughter, Martha, recognized my name and drove through the worsening weather to get me. She took me to the store for canned goods, ground beef and fried chicken, then returned me to the empty house. Before heading to Hatteras, unsure whether she could get out herself, she left my name and number with her staff. I watched her vanish into the storm, wanting to ask her to stay. Then the silence closed in—and I began to wonder what I would do if the phone never rang again.

By Friday evening, the wind had gone still, but the silence felt watchful. Just before bed, a blood-red light seeped across the living room. I turned to see the sound burning beneath a bruised sky, the sunset beautiful in the way a warning can be beautiful. For one reckless moment, I took it as a sign from God that the storm had released me. Then darkness swallowed the last red light, and the truth remained: the road was broken, the island had me, and I still had no way out.

Stranded, but Not Alone

On Saturday, I reached Theresa Schneider, publisher of The Coastland Times, granddaughter of Frances Meekins and, years ago, a schoolmate of my daughter. She called Mary Helen. Soon, my phone rang with a promise: the moment a ferry ran, Mary Helen would get me on it.

Then Martha texted: her husband, Scott Caldwell, would pick me up at 10 for another grocery run. A true Outer Banker, Scott owns the store, manages five rental houses and runs an inshore fishing charter. That week, he was also helping a renter whose pregnant wife had crossed the bridge to shop and couldn’t get back. Food Lion in Avon had been stripped nearly bare, but their small store, which mostly serves campers, still had supplies. Scott reassured me: “You are local. Don’t worry, we locals got your back.”

The text messages kept coming—Jan and Phil, safely home; friends Sue and Mary Lou; daughters Jessica and Julie tracking every NCDOT update. Each brought a flicker of relief, followed by the sickening reminder that everyone I loved was far away. I made vegetable beef soup, lightened my bags and cut another piece of Jan’s coconut birthday cake, forcing my hands through ordinary tasks while my chest stayed tight and my pulse jumped at every sound. I kept counting the medication I had left, calculating how many days it might last if the road stayed closed. The thought of running out before I could escape tightened the knot beneath my ribs. Outside, the beach had vanished. The raw wind drove the sound over its banks, and the cold pressed against the house. I tried to sound practical, even cheerful, but fear had settled into my body: clenched jaw, trembling hands, shallow breaths. By 3 a.m., I could no longer pretend I was fine. I called my friend Eileen in California. She stayed on the phone until I could breathe normally again—and, somehow, we were both laughing.

Getting Off the Island

Sunday dawned crisp and cloudless, the sound calm and silver beneath a cool blue sky—the Outer Banks at its most beautiful. Then came the news I had been waiting for: NCDOT would begin emergency ferry service from Rodanthe to Stumpy Point. When a flat tire sidelined Mary Helen, Martha arranged a ride for me from Hatteras. My daughter, Jess, juggling three children and a job in Chapel Hill, would make the five-hour drive to meet me Monday.

At 9 a.m. Monday, Martha’s friend Annie pulled up with a young man who hoisted my bags into her truck. As we drove, the storm’s wreckage unfolded along the road: cars swept from the oceanside stood in a crooked, mud-streaked line, beach houses hung above gaps where their driveways had been, and gray seawater coursed between them like a river.

The ferry line snaked from Rodanthe to the Hatteras post office, a procession of stranded cars stretching more than 30 miles; some people had been waiting more than 30 hours. A woman moved slowly from vehicle to vehicle, handing out food and water. Most drivers waited with weary patience, though a few complained. As a walk-on, I was fortunate. A sheriff’s deputy waved us past the long line, an NCDOT worker lifted my luggage aboard, and I hugged Annie goodbye before stepping onto the ferry.

The NCDOT ferries passing on Monday. Photo by Michelle Cassell

At Stumpy Point, NCDOT staff pressed water and Duck Donuts—truly to die for—into my hands as I waited for my daughter. Nearby, a WAVY reporter was gathering reactions from drivers rolling off the ferry, many furious after the long wait. When he turned his camera toward me and asked what I thought, I didn’t hesitate. I told him what I’ll tell you now.

Blaming NCDOT misses the mark. Anyone who visits Hatteras Island this time of year faces the danger. This storm struck as a nor’easter; the next could hit as a hurricane. Confronting unprecedented destruction, NCDOT crews carved out an emergency ferry route within days. They moved stranded people to safety and rushed fuel and medical supplies back to the island. They labored without pause, met the crisis head-on and wielded hard-earned experience to keep Hatteras running. If you refuse to accept these risks, do not come.

Should I have left with Jan and Phil? Yes, I should have. After so many storms, I had too much faith in the ocean receding and the road holding, and I wanted my family with me. That was a silly, optimistic choice.

Home

The camera was still rolling when an NCDOT worker shouted, “Your daughter is here.” She had driven five hours from Chapel Hill, leaving her husband and three children, to bring me home. I cut the interview short, and they sped me and my bags to her car in a golf cart. I rose slowly, steadied myself, and crossed the few steps to her. The instant I saw her, days of fear and exhaustion caught up with me. I leaned into her embrace and let her hold me. She was tired, and five more hours of road waited—but at last, I no longer had to carry everything alone.

When I finally walked into my condo, the first thing I saw was the print on the wall: a lighthouse against a storm-dark sea, beneath the words, “Through the storm, you do not walk alone.” My husband and I had bought it during our first year in Nags Head, when we were beginning our life by the ocean. Over the years, it had become part of the room, though after his death I seldom let myself dwell on what it represented. That night, after the storm and the long trip home, I stopped in front of it. He was gone, and I was still learning the practical, often difficult work of living without him. But the print remained—an ordinary object we had chosen together, and a quiet reminder that the life we shared still shapes the one I have now.

The sunset that turned the house red.  Photo by Michelle Cassell.

What remains with me most is gratitude: for the pale moon sinking over the sound at 3 a.m., for the sunset that filled the room with red, and for every person who called or texted, came for me, fed me, reassured me and helped carry me home. The island showed me both its beauty and its fury, but its people gave me something even more lasting

—the knowledge that when I was frightened and far from those I loved, I was never truly alone.

Special thanks to Martha Caldwell and her husband, Scott, owners of Liberty Gas Station and Island Convenience; Mary Helen Goodloe-Murphy, a reporter for The Coastland Times; and Theresa Schneider, the newspaper’s publisher. Thank you, too, to Annie, every friend who called and the NCDOT crews who got us home.

— Michelle Cassell, Editor, The Local Reporter

I included this because I know many of our readers have a deep attachment to the Outer Banks and love and respect it as much as I do.

Happy to be leaving. Photo by Michelle Cassell

Michelle Cassell is a seasoned reporter who has covered everything from crime to hurricanes and local politics to human interest over the course of 35 years. As editor, she hopes to encourage writers of a wide range of backgrounds and interests in TLR’s coverage of Southern Orange County news. This reporter can be reached at: Information@TheLocalReporter.press.