September 16, two days before Hurricane Isabel is expected to make landfall, the hovercraft can be seen ZOOMING up the Potomac River to find safe port in some harbor.

Maybe you can see the hovercraft better in this photo. They really do fly on the water and the sound they make and the mist they make are tremendous.

This is the last we’ll see of calm blue water for a few days.

It's Thursday morning, September 16, around 10:00 AM and the water has turned grey and very angry as you can (almost) see in this out-of-focus picture!

The jetty to the left of our house protected our cove for a while but when the waters rose maybe 4 feet above normal, with wave swells at 6-7 feet, it was of no help. The cove took quite a hit.

Looking from my yard South into Currioman Bay to the right you see the trees are being blown around (it's good that we took the flag down from the flag pole - which you can leaning in the center-right of the photo) you can see that neighbor Bob S. left his Parker on the boat lift. We can only hope that the dock is true and stays together! All our other neighbors, except for Buddy D. to the North of us, have taken their boats in.

Around 4:30 PM on Thursday, with the waters haven risen and with swells between 5 and 7 feet, what we expected began - the dock began to break up. AMAZING, when you see a dock, built from 2x6 boards that have been double bolted to the pilings, begin moving up and down as the water pleases. The water was pounding up through the boards just shaking the dock apart. Remember from grade school when you would twirl a pencil between your fingers so fast that it wobbled like rubber? That's what the dock looked like - a huge rubber eraser wobbling in the seas. This fuzzy photo and the next, taken through the window, show you the start of the-end-of-the-dock.

Out the window, out of focus, but still you can imagine ...

We then decided to take a short drive to the community marina to see how things were going. They were going ... up, down, splashing around, water over the docks and properties.

Two powerboat and two sailboat owners left their boats tied up. I don't know what happened - I haven't been back to the marina. I can only imagine that as the waters rose, so did the boats and that they ended up being on and then over the dock, and then broke their lines and (hopefully) ended up in the marshes.

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.

Here's a better photo of the FBI folks dock. It too was rather high off the water but that didn't help, as during this storm, the water was rather high too! You can see that the boat Bob S. left on the lift made it through Isabel. I hardly believe it because, as you'll see in a few photos, the boat Buddy and Sharon D. left on their boatlift didn't make it. OH, one last comment on this photo, just in front of the bow of Bob's boat, can you see the house on the hill with the screened-in-porch? Can you see the cave-in where Bob and Denny M. lost much of their lawn, their property? This is very bad!

You saw a photo of the quiet cove just roiling on Thursday. Here's a shot of all the debris (flotsam and jetsam) that was funneled into it. What a mess. If you are an enterprising sort of person, maybe one who is missing a dock, a pier, some stairs, if you wade into the cove you might just find some of your dock, pier, and stairs!

It's 9:00 AM Friday and we've gathered up the courage to venture out to see how our new home handled the category 1 hurricane. The road leading down to our home, Currioman Road, is 2.6 miles long. One mile down the road we came upon this - a downed cedar tree that must have been 50 or 60, or better, years old.

Of course, that wasn't the only downed tree in those 2.6 miles. Maybe 15 to 20 old trees - poplar, hickory, cedar, etc. - were down and, as one hurricane veteran says, the road was littered with Hurricane Salad!

If it wasn’t for our neighbors down at the bottom of the hill, Frankie and Gail J. and their 2 sons Frankie and Matt, those trees might still be there or the county/state would have to remove them. Frankie runs a mill, farms property, and who know what else (they're a hard working family) and so has all the equipment to cut up and remove the trees. Talk about Hurricane Salad! And just one day later Mother Nature (and cars) had taken care of the salad and moved it off the road.

Gus and I hiked the last 1.6 miles down to the house. Worry was evident on our faces. Did the cupola/vent get pulled off the garage roof? Was damage done to the unfinished front entrance since the roof was only propped up, the entrance posts not yet installed? Water leaks? Downed trees? Anything else broken (like lightening rods or worse yet, the windows)? NOTHING MISSING, NOTHING BROKEN? The entrance and cupola were intact. The only damage we suffered were a few fallen trees along the bank (we've a better river view now, thank you), some water in the master and guest bedrooms on the N/NE side of the house (what do you expect with sustained winds of 50-60 mph and gusts as high as 89 mph at Dahlgren – although I have heard of gusts at 105 mph locally!), and LOTS of flotsam and jetsam on our beach, but the old Hickory tree on the beach is still there.

Back at the house we're living in now, we ventured out on John and Sharon's dock to take a different look at our ruined dock and the shoreline. Undermined - that's all I can think of to say. The property line ends at that copse of three trees. At least there is still some bulkhead left there.

Looking up into our cove, again from John and Sharon's pier, you can see (again) the tremendous damage done to the neighbors’ docks and real estate.

After lunch (PB&J since we had no electricity) on Friday we went out again to check on friends and family. At Nomini Bay, a smaller bay off of Currioman Bay where we live, we checked on Claudia & Robert M. and Guido P. in Vaughn's Landing. En route there we passed this home under construction. Just imagine! The home of friends Al & June F. was okay (in case you're wondering Sandy and Laurel) - they weren't here for the storm, were to return today, so we needed to see if there was damage we should start working on - they just lost some fascia wrap and had yet another water leak in the sunroom. Will that never end!

Saturday around Noon, September 20, Don and Floyd - now owners of the home we're living in - arrive (we'd last talked with them on Thursday during the hurricane) bearing the greatest gifts of all: themselves, their love and support and concern, and BAGS OF ICE AND WATER, and gourmet sandwiches for lunch! Ice-cold water has never tasted so good (and the awe of its availability was only surpassed by the warm shower I eventually took - but that ice water really was, in hind sight, best, a cold GI shower can do okay). Don and Floyd helped clean up the yard, helped straighten up about 9 Leyland Cypress trees whose root balls were pulled up a bit (they are 3 years old and still the storm moved them!). They were leaning about 10 degrees after being blown by the storm, and then they did the same for the Hollywood Juniper trees outside of the gazebo. It was decided that if the Junipers were to live and grow, that the tops had to be cut back.

Don, what a card!, has to ham it up for the camera. Thanks for the humor, Don - we all needed it.

It's a bit of a stretch to reach the top of the Junipers. Thank goodness the screens were blown out of the gazebo.

Sunday morning, before Gus went off to mow the lawn at the new house, we took a drive in to Colonial Beach - just 10 minutes up the river by boat, 25 minutes by car. We had heard that they took a bad hit from Isabel - the town is right on the river, low to it. Big hit is an understatement to what destruction we saw. The Pier was demolished as you can see from this and the next picture.

This hardly gives you a taste of the damage and wreckage done in Colonial Beach. They are RIGHT on the Potomac River with homes and businesses built so close to/on the river bank. Rip-rap constructed with huge boulders was torn apart, the rocks strewn across the street and into peoples yards. Hundred-year-old trees uprooted and down on homes, down between homes (but through the walls), water rushing in to the first floor of homes and tearing out walls. Truly horrific it was.

There once was a restaurant in Colonial Beach (VA) called the Riverboat where, since it was built on pilings in the river and so was in Maryland waters, you could play Keno and place off track bets, as well as have a nice dinner – or so I’ve heard. The Riverboat was crushed as evidenced in this and the next two photos. I understand that after the storm the beach was littered with unopened liquor bottles and that folks were picking them up right and left!

Returning home from Colonial Beach we stopped at Sharks Tooth Beach in our development to see how the beach held up. It was hard to say, what with the high tides, but the debris covered the beach and covered the parking lot. The huge tree trunk out closest to the waters edge used to be on the finger islands just out in Currioman Bay. It was moved onshore in the hurricane and that was no small feat!

I'm standing on the beach looking up into the parking lot, now covered in debris, to our car in the driveway.

You may recall that a neighbor of ours, Buddy D., had left his boat (30-40 foot) on his boat lift. Well we were checking on it, peering out of our window, from time to time when around 5:00 PM on Thursday we saw it rocking. Only could mean one thing - that the tide and waves had lifted it OFF of the boatlift and that it would surely break loose. Nothing you can do about that with waters raging over your pier and dock. By 6:00 PM, I believe, we didn't see his boat anymore. Friday morning we looked up to Buddy’s dock, now missing, as was his boat. Talking with Buddy later in the day he said that Thursday/Friday morning after having seen his boat slip away, around 1:30 AM he couldn’t take it anymore and went out driving in search of his boat. Sure enough, and luckily enough, Buddy found his boat just up river in the marshland. Now how is a fellow supposed to get his boat out of the marsh and back to safety? Well, he’s been told that perhaps a crane or perhaps a helicopter can get it back on the water. My gosh!