NEW HANOVER COUNTY — Isolated power outages affected roughly 5,000 New Hanover residents and at least three tornadoes touched down as tropical storm Idalia reached the southeastern North Carolina shoreline Thursday.
According to the National Weather Service, a tornado hit the Myrtle Grove area Wednesday night as the first band of weather from Idalia arrived. A tornado watch was in effect Wednesday until 10 p.m.
The tornado spawned from a waterspout before coming ashore around 7:31 p.m. and affected the area of Tidalwalk Drive.
“[It] lifted near Country Place Road in southern New Hanover County,” according to NWS.
Traveling 1-and-half miles with a 30-yard width, it lasted four minutes with peak winds estimated at 100 miles per hour. It snapped multiple oak and pine trees, with one tree reportedly falling on a shed and a piece of aluminum decorative molding splitting from a home.
“It was minor and we were able to have push-and-cut crews out there early to get that cleared up,” NHC emergency operations director Steven Still said during a media briefing Thursday afternoon.
An EF1-scaled tornado was confirmed to have touched down in Brunswick County near Clarendon Plantation Road off N.C. Highway 133A, NWS reported. It had winds of 110 mph and was on the ground for just 0.1 miles, impacting wooded areas.
Another has been confirmed in the St. James area of the county, near Four Paws Veterinary, which experienced roof damage and had part of its ceiling collapse; the animals are safe, the vet reported.
WECT is reporting the tornado then traveled north near Executive Park Boulevard, impacting another roof, causing a large tree to fall dislodging an A/C unit from another building.
No injuries or deaths have been reported from the tornadoes.
Power went off in many areas by 10:30 p.m. Wednesday, including near Wilmington International Airport; almost 2,000 people were left in the dark until 9:30 a.m. Thursday. Outages were at a peak around 7 a.m. as Idalia passed 20 miles off New Hanover’s coast, according to Still.
By 1 p.m. he said only 50 people were without electricity.
Tropical storm Idalia — which hit the Florida panhandle Tuesday morning as a Category 3 hurricane — arrived in the greater Wilmington area with 50-mile-per-hour winds and dumping up to 4 inches or more of rainfall in some areas.
Though it’s mostly quiet in the region now per winds and rain, ocean swells will continue throughout the weekend and likely until Tuesday, Still said. It will mean dangerous rip currents and marine conditions, compounded by Hurricane Franklin also churning in the Atlantic Ocean over Bermuda.
“If you’re unfamiliar, uncomfortable with your swimming abilities, don’t chance it and don’t venture out,” Still said.
Both Wrightsville and Carolina beaches will have lifeguards standing watch this Labor Day weekend.
“We will continue to warn swimmers about rip tides and dangerous conditions,” Carolina Beach town manager Bruce Oakley wrote to PCD Thursday.
Oakley added the southern New Hanover shoreline did experience some erosion, “but not nearly as much as we expected.”
“Our beaches held up well,” he wrote. “The water came up to the rock revetments on the north end but did not overwash them or any of the dunes.”
Carolina Beach will reopen the south end’s Freeman Park on Friday, Sept. 1, at 7 a.m.
In Wrightsville Beach, there have been no closures and the storm didn’t include overwash, town manager Tim Owens confirmed. He said the town hadn’t assessed its beach erosion as of 1 p.m.
“We have the surf cams out,” Still told media, “and it doesn’t look like they had any major dune loss, but there certainly seems to be water pretty high up close on the dunes. … It looks like there was potentially some loss of sand. Thankfully, we’re looking forward to having renourishment on Wrightsville Beach this year.”
Wrightsville Beach is going on year five without being replenished with sand; it’s slated to begin in winter 2024.
CATCH UP: Feds approve emergency funding for WB renourishment
The North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality’s Marine Fisheries Division released an advisory Thursday afternoon against swimming in the coastal waters along the path the storm. It’s in effect from the South Carolina state line at Little River up to Kitty Hawk, North Carolina.
“Heavy winds and rain have negatively impacted coastal waters,” the release noted. “Waters affected by stormwater runoff can contain elevated levels of harmful bacteria that drain into coastal water bodies.”
There have not been immediate laboratory tests done to confirm disease-causing organisms are in the water, though NCDEQ adds that storm impacts increase those chances. Excess rain can lead to flooding in streets, yards and properties, with water often pumped by municipalities into the ocean.
“Avoid swimming near ocean outfalls, including the wet sand where the floodwater is pumped, even if no sign is posted,” NCDEQ forewarned, adding widespread impacts of Idalia may not make it feasible to post warnings in affected areas.
Water testing will begin as soon as conditions are safe and the areas are accessible, which with promising results will lead to the advisory being lifted.
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