After I photographed the sound coming up at a scary rate for about 15 minutes, I decided to drive down to South Nags Head to photograph the surf as it cleaned up from the offshore wind. The sky was moody and the wind straight offshore. My wife was with me.The road was dry when I got down there and the waves were getting better and better. Not really surfable but really fun to watch and photograph. Wife snapped a photo of me shooting for perspective.

In hindsight, driving down to Nags Head was probably the dumbest thing I could’ve done. After shooting for about 30 minutes, I hopped back in the truck to head home. When I pulled out onto the road I couldn’t believe my eyes..

There was now a river rushing across the street as far as I could see that was dry 30 minutes prior. I had messages on my phone from friends that live near my house to get home as soon as possible because the sound was coming fast and approaching my house. ”I hope you’ve gotten everything upstairs cause its coming fast and its not looking good!! It’s like a tsunami!” My wife and I really started freaking out because we were 15 miles away from my house with a rushing river between us and our home and dog. I didn’t know how deep it was but I had only one choice…to charge through it. Service engine soon light came on, water coming up on the hood, truck stalling. Panicking. Am I going to make it? What if I don’t? No turning back. By the grace of god we made it (my truck is not running so well now) and raced home. Was one of the scariest moments of my life and I’m so thankful we didn’t get stranded in south nags head. Can’t believe some of the things I do to take surf photos! The next morning I got up before sunrise to see how bad Irene devastated the area. It was a beautiful sunrise with really fun looking waves. Hard to believe a hurricane nearly leveled parts of the Outer Banks the day before.


After shooting for a few minutes at Avalon I drove to Bay Drive to photograph the destruction. Bay drive is about 3 streets away from my house. Once again I couldn’t believe my eyes. So many peoples lives turned upside down. Boats and debris everywhere. Confused animals. Heartbroken people. Houses ruined. War zone.
















I have friends that live in Colington and heard the flooding was really bad there as well so I headed there. The sound water had receded but the low lying areas still had standing water.






Most of my friends were surfing at this point in the day, so I left Colington to head back down to South Nags where I thought I was going to get stranded the evening before. There were boats and jetskis everywhere near whalebone junction from Nags Head Waterways. When I got into south nags the road was almost dry again. Eerie considering how it looked 12 hours prior.


The waves had dropped quite a bit but were still fun. Surfed for a couple hours. When I got out I saw something in the surf. Walkd over and it was a very confused snapping turtle that had most likely been washed into the surf from the sound. I watched him for a few minutes try and figure out what the heck was going on. He eventually started walking back up to the sound. It was bizarre seeing a big snapper walking on the beach.



That evening I flew in a helicopter down to Hatteras Island and photographed the new inlets and devastation down there. Will post those photos soon..check back.

Tags: Landscape, People, Photos // 3 Comments »