Two down...

...but hopefully no more to come! I'm talking about tropical storms. Did you know that the two named storms so far this hurricane season (which officially started June 1) BOTH visited Ocracoke?

First we had Andrea, who came by in early May (she apparently didn't get the memo about hurricane season not starting until June 1). Now admittedly, this storm wasn't named until after it left us, but it was the same storm nonetheless!

Then, this past weekend, we had Barry drop in uninvited. He was quite polite about it, all things considered, by not arriving until after the Ocrafolk Festival activities on Saturday had ended (the Festival, in case you don't know, is held outdoors). Barry initially confined his storming to the overnight hours of June 2nd (as I have often joked, Ocracoke is Camelot: it only rains at night). He did overstay his welcome (or lack thereof) a bit, though, when he continued to send smatterings of rain on and off all day on Sunday. (Luckily, the Festival organizers had decided to move the final day's events to the alternate indoor venue.)

I'm not complaining too loudly, because neither Andrea nor Barry caused any long term issues on the island (we had the usual minor flooding and power outages, but things were back to normal within a day of both storms). I would, however, sincerely appreciate it if Chantal (and Dean, and Erin, and Felix, and...) would stay out at sea. I fully understand that everyone wants to visit Ocracoke, but we really don't need the entire alphabet of storms showing up at our front door.

Hope things aren't too stormy in your part of the world!