Here’s the boat ramp at the Stratford Harbour marina. Would you dare to consider putting your boat in or taking it out on a day like today?

One friend, Ralph E. moored his boat back in the marina where he was hoping for more protection. He stayed the night on his boat. Another friend, George M., whose home is just to the left of the martina in this photo, left his boat on the boatlift. He watched it buck like a bronco and break free, only to end up beached onshore. George went out in the storm, jumped on to his boat with a line, and somehow managed to run it off the beach and maneuver it closer to where Ralph was moored. He too spent the night on his boat. Both boats and owners are safe and sound the next day, although a bit shaken up from the ordeal. What a story!

To the right of our home is a little cove where my brother- & sister-in-law (Dusty & Judy R.) and friends Hal and Ann R. have weekend homes. Normally the cove is quiet with Great Blue Herons feeding in the shallow water. Not today. It was raging. This photo was taken from the weekend home of 2 FBI agents (names withheld or else they would kill me) on the other side of the cove from me. I took a little movie from here with the digital camera. If you would like to see/hear it, drop me a note and I'll send it to you.

Again the cove and in the foreground of this photo you can see the little pier at the weekend home of Bill and Angie B. They live in Shreveport, LA, spending winter and spring here. Their pier is covered with debris already - it's still around 4:30 Thursday - and after Isabel, I couldn’t believe it, the pier was still intact! In the background you can see our dock and pier, out in the bay, but alas, as you will see later, it is no more.

THE MORNING AFTER – 7:00 AM: isn't it the truth ... you have the most beautiful sunrise after one hellacious storm!

Gus assesses the damage ... the dock and pier are gone but that's not all.

The 300 tons of rip-rap put down in 1998? Washed over, moved about. The shoreline was undermined and a new cliff (of sorts) created, on the property and everyone else's property up in our once jetty-protected cove.

Looking to the right from the now-demolished stairs that once took you down to the dock (well, most of the stairs were removed by Isabel), you can see some of the damage done to the property above the rip-rap and seawall. And then, where the puddle is, you can see the damage done to our neighbor's property, Mike and Cheryl M. They used to have a garden at the waters' edge, along with a swing settee. No more.

The stability of the willow tree has been jeopardized. Can you see some of the root system dangling in open air? Perhaps the tree must be taken down. That will be a sad day for Gus and me. We brought that willow home in the Jeep Wrangler about 4 years ago and it has grown in to a beautiful tree.

The stairs, to our surprise - although I can't imagine why it was a surprise - are now unsupported and unstable.

It's still around 7:00 AM on Friday, I've been snapping photos left and right, and up and down! Here's our neighbor's dock. John and Sharon S. built a dock well above water. They wanted to be prepared as global warming melts the ice caps and the waters rise. They didn't build high enough. Their dock was destroyed. They might, however, have been on to something as what really might have destroyed the dock was the dead cedar tree, or two, that washed up on and under the dock and just beat it apart! The next dock over belongs to Tom and Martha C. They, and Rick and Linda P. with the next dock back, lost their dock and pier and stairs, as well as all the bulkhead (seawall) separating their property from the water.