September 18, 2003 brought severe devastation to our favorite spot on earth!  Isabel visited Davis and Cape Lookout National Seashore at the absolute worst possible moment.  The wind had been blowing the water down the Sound from the North and had already filled the sound between Core Banks South and the mainland.  When Isabel landed at Drum Inlet the Sound had nowhere else to go but over Davis.

     Jack Dunaway was taking pictures and measuring when he wasn’t picking stuff up putting it out of the water’s way.  He said at one point the water was rising one inch per minute!  Most everyone in Davis (and other communities in the area) were caught off-guard by the speed and height of the flooding.  Every couple of years it would flood, but never like this!

     Well, many folks probably think things have gotten back to normal in Davis with the Hurricane months behind, but things are anything but normal again. 

Page 5

Davis Island Update

by

Tom Dunaway

Many residents are still living with others, in temporary housing, campers, etc. while rebuilding continues into the New Year.                                                                                               Here are pictures taken in the second half of January showing some of the houses being raised in Davis (one is of Ronnie’s and Irma’s).  Listening to some of the stories the folks of Davis tell, you learn it’s been a hard road to get this far.  FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) reacted quickly after the disaster and helped many people with necessities, the Salvation Army was there with three meals a day for many weeks, and the insurance agencies finally got there (some quicker than others!)  Davis folk have had to pack up what was salvageable and store it where they could, move into other places or with family, and many are not back in their homes yet.

     Davis will be a different place when all is said and done and things get back to “normal”.  But it will still be “Paradise” for those of us who know it and the great people in it!