Tag: Hurricane
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Ocracoke Light Station
Ocracoke Island, North Carolina (March 2012) The primary reason we went through the trouble of riding the ferry to Ocracoke Island from Hatteras was to see the old lighthouse (map). Construction of this version occurred in 1823 although lighthouses watched over Ocracoke Inlet since 1795. The need had long been established. English explorers first wrecked…
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Remote Lighthouses of the Dry Tortugas
Dry Tortugas National Park, Florida (April 2009) The end of the Florida Keys is not Key West. Not hardly. Islands of coral, sand and mangrove trail out further into the Gulf of Mexico. First come the Marquesas Keys. Further out still, some 70 miles from the civilized shores of Key West come the Dry Tortugas.…
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Biloxi Lighthouse
Biloxi, Mississippi (April 2010) The Biloxi Lighthouse (map) is a symbol of the city, of hope and resilience in the wake of major hurricanes that have scoured the Gulf Coast for centuries. This is perhaps the most easily approachable lighthouse of any I’ve visited. Anyone can take Interstate 110 directly to the heart of Bilox…
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Inland Hurricane
Hurricanes often hit the eastern parts of the United States. Generally they concentrate on the Atlantic side of the nation or along the Gulf of Mexico coastline. However, sometimes they move inland, weakening as they push away from open water. Those can cause massive flooding and damage. None of them ever pushed all the way…
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Eric Henn Murals
A couple of articles featured Circleville, Ohio earlier this year, Square the Circle and Circleville Survived. I’d honed in on this otherwise nondescript town because anything with a circle was fair game for Twelve Mile Circle. And I actually discovered a few fascinating tidbits, confirming once again that geo-oddities existed everywhere. One such item included…
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Batten Down the Hatches
I’ve been familiar with the phrase “Batten Down the Hatches” for so long that I can’t even recall when I first heard it. I’ve always understood it to derive from a nautical origin. However, in current usage it seems to mean a more general effort to prepare for the worst. One would want to cover…
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Hurricane Irene Now a Memory
Hurricane Irene finally finished with the Washington, DC area. We do have one last rain band that needs to work its way through. Then we should have clear skies by noon. I’ve been up since 5:00 am, partially because I’m an early riser, partially because I couldn’t sleep for the obvious reasons. I’ve noticed the…
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Virginia’s Bermuda
Bermuda was once part of Virginia. It would be natural to wonder how that might happen. There is a striking difference between the two. Most visibly, Virginia occupies a solid placement on the North American mainland. Meanwhile, Bermuda is an island archipelago 650 miles (1046 kilometers) out to sea. If Bermuda was directly off the…