Late last month, people in the United States mid-Atlantic Region still were recuperating from the effects of Hurricane Isabel.The category two storm, which packed 105 mph winds and torrential rains, battered the U.S. East Coast beginning Sept. 18, leaving flooding, power outages, disruption and mass destruction in its path. At least 40 deaths have been blamed on the hurricane, 25 of them in Virginia.
From coastal communities in North Carolina and Virginia, where people either evacuated their homes or buckled down with non-perishables and flashlights to wait out the storm, to Maryland and Washington, where the federal government shut down, virtually no one went unscathed. North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland and Delaware were declared federal disaster areas, and President Bush visited Richmond, Va. to be briefed on the recovery efforts.
Amazingly enough, the SIU headquarters and its ports, which are situated in cities along the hurricane’s path, fared unexpectedly well.
Headquarters in Camp Springs, Md. closed down at noon Sept. 18 and remained closed through the weekend. Power remained off during the closure, but thanks to a back-up generator, the building opened up for managers and other essential personnel on Sept. 22. Power was fully restored around 4 p.m. Sept. 23, and headquarters returned to business as usual the following day.
“Aside from the power outage, everything else was pretty much intact in the aftermath of Isabel,” said Frank Eno, facility manager at SIU headquarters. “We had no structural damage to the main building or to our warehouse. We did have a lot of debris to clean up and our security gates sustained minor damage.
“All in all, I think we really dodged the bullet on this one,” Eno concluded. “Things certainly could have been a lot worse.”
The situation was almost identical at the port of Piney Point, Md. “We were wiped out as far as electricity is concerned,” said Piney Point Port Agent Edd Morris. “We lost power Sept 18 and did not get back on line until Sept. 24. We had no computer or fax capability here in the port office, so we relied on other departments at the school (Paul Hall Center for Maritime Training & Education) to help us out in this regard. It was kind of awkward doing business that way, but we carried on as best we could.”
The ports of Baltimore, Brooklyn and Boston reported similar experiences. “Aside from the power outage, which forced us to close down early on Sept. 18 and remain closed a couple of days, nothing adverse happened to us here,” offered Baltimore Port Agent Dennis Metz.
Gerard Dhooge in Boston stated, “We did not have anything to speak of happen to us here as a result of Isabel. We did experience heavy showers a couple of days, but that’s about it.”
New York Port Agent Bob Selzer said that power was lost at the hall for a couple of hours on Sept.18, but business was affected only minimally. “We did not have much activity at the port because many of the vessels that would have come through or tied up here were diverted to other locations because of the weather,” Selzer said. “Many of the companies were closed because of the storm and as a consequence not much shipping took place.”
In the port of Norfolk, no damage at all was sustained in the hall, but operations were shut down Sept. 17-19, according to SIU VP Government Services Division Kermett Mangram. “We did crew up two vessels (the Regulus and Bob Hope) and moved them out of the port for safety reasons, but that was about it,” Mangram said. “A third vessel, the Cape Johnson, was crewed up to be moved, but it remained in port.”
Hardest hit by Isabel was the Paul Hall Center for Maritime Training and Education. In addition to losing power, some of school’s facilities suffered significant damage. According to Don Nolan, vice president for the center, waters rose to 8 feet above normal. Marinas and piers were damaged or destroyed, and approximately 80 trees were knocked down. Remarkably, only one tree landed on a building (a classroom used for first aid and CPR instruction).
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