A post by Bama S on the Alabama forum reminded me of this. My long time fishing buddy Roy (God rest his soul) and I took off for the Chowan River (Gatesville) in NC on a beautiful morning. There was nothing in the weather forecasts to indicate anything but a pretty day. Boy were they wrong. We managed to catch a few that morning, nothing to brag about. Around 2 or so it started clouding up. Nothing to get excited about until they turned very black and it started pouring and the winds came big time. Its like it all came out of nowhere. I couldn't see to get back to the ramp and the wind was too high to try it anyway. So I put the bimini top up and tied off to a stump in the middle of the creek. Goose Creek off the Chowan for those that know the area. When I tied off the stump stuck up out of the water about 18" or so. Being up the creek some protected us from the winds so we just sat there and watched it rain. Oh boy did it rain. I noticed that the stump was rapidly disappearing and eventually was under water.

We sat there for a couple hours till the weather started calming down and we decided to make a run for the ramp. It wasn't too bad but when we got there the ramp was under water and the parking lot flooded. I waded up to the truck to get it but when I got there I realized it would be a major problem backing it in at the pier. Not a problem. I went back to the boat, untied it, and floated it up to the trailer and put it on the trailer.

We managed to get out of there up the gravel road and headed home. Well tried to. There were trees down every where and lots of roads blocked. A normal 45 min drive took us 3-4 hours and we had to take a detour up thru Suffolk, Va. Again lots of trees down and underpasses flooded but we managed.

It seems that a couple tornados had come thru the area and really tore things up. I consider us being very, very lucky and do not care to go thru that again. But was destined to have 2 more events. Somebody has been looking out for us.