Chaos Among Calm Waters

My fiancée and I had been planning this trip for months. Nothing was going to stop me from going, not even getting fired two days beforehand (that's a different story).

We checked, double checked, and checked again that we had everything and then some of what we would need on a week long vacation to the Outer Banks on the East coast of North Carolina. We had been watching the weather closely and determined Hurricane Helene would make land fall after we landed, so the trip was a go.

Kristy had never flown before, and I had never flown as an adult making my own adult decisions, like going on this trip in the first place, so even leaving home was an adventure. Little did I know the size of the adventure we were embarking on.

We landed in Norfolk around 10:30 p.m. Nothing was open and we were starving. After finding some chicken at a 24hr gas station, we started off on a planned all-nighter. We hadn't reserved a hotel for that evening. Armed with only our rental truck and ambition, we drove straight to Virginia Beach where the boardwalk and, come to find out, the beach, were open all night to the public.

There wasn't a soul around and we got some amazing shots of a liminally empty beach at night, lit only by the hotels on one side, with the black vastness of the ocean on the other.

Having both grown up in landlocked states, this was our first encounter with the ocean. Even at night, one can sense the immense power of all that water sloshing around out there. We spent a few hours watching shipping vessels and cruise ships float silently by in the distance.

We slept in the car for a few hours and I woke up to my alarm telling me we had less than an hour until sunrise.

Words cannot describe that sunrise.

Beautiful beyond measure, we spent the first few hours of daylight amazed at the array of colors and taking as many pictures as we could. We soaked in the moment, we had made it, and actually saw the waves for the first time.

That's how the trip started, now let me tell you how it ended.

One day, we decided, on a whim, to make the drive South to Myrtle Beach. I don't regret the experience, but it's nothing to wright home about in the off season. We were honestly getting tired of beach by this point.

Now this is when Helene made land fall and we both got alerts that we were currently in the flood zone. Having spent a good portion of our budget throughout the week, trying to find a last minute hotel wasn't going to be worth the effort.

We decided to drive through the night.

Two hours later, exhaustion took hold once again and our tummies started to rumble. I needed a break from driving anyway, so we located the next closest town where we could take a break and really decide if we should keep going, or hunker down for the night. Our hosts had already agreed to let us come back around the estimated 3am arrival time.

We had made it back across the border to North Carolina and out of the flood zone. We stopped in at a quaint little place called Southport around 9:00 p.m.

We pulled in and parked, intending to have dinner at one of the numerous places on the edge of the ocean. Three restaurants in a row shut their doors as we were approaching as if we were caught in some Twilight Zone episode. We settled for ice cream as it was the only thing open and went for a stroll, being the night owls we are, to see what the town had to offer after dark.

We found the only two places still open in downtown Southport at this hour, a Bourbon bar and another bar across the street. We stood there, weighing our options. It was not likely we were going to find vacancy this time of night. As we stood there, a waitress walked out of the bar and politely waited at the outdoor podium for us to say something. I asked how late they were open and she said "'til midnight" and that they were still serving food. Well that works. This is usually how our dates go; start with a vague idea of a plan and go from there. It's amazing the kind of places we end up.

Turns out, this bar has a fun trivia night every Wednesday. We were too late for the first round, but only three questions behind everyone else on the second. I asked for a play card and the man running the show was kind enough to give me the missing questions. Kristy rolled her eyes at all of this. I didn't do well on the trivia, but the food was great and it filled us up. We decided to walk off the Old Fashioned I had and cinnamon shot she had. We traveled in the general direction of the truck, wandering aimlessly. We came across a swing set we were pretty sure was part of the park.

In front of us was a random parking lot with a bulkhead that ended in a shear drop off with water on the other side. This is where we find peace, at night, no one around, listening to the serene sounds of nature all around us.

After sitting there a while, talking about life and watching people fish off the pier, it was time to finish our long drive back to OBX. There wasn't much North of there so it would be all or nothing at this point.

We turned right and crossed over the intersection of S. Howe St. and W. Bay St. and stopped to take a creepy photo of the street light down the road.

As Kristy snapped the photo, I heard the roar of an engine and, turning around, saw a red flash, heard screeching tires, the awful crunching noise of a vehicle smacking something hard, then saw the truck hit the water with a splash.

For a split second, I froze. I knew the list of things that needed to happen all at once, but I wasn't sure of the order. I looked at Kristy who was already getting her phone out. "Call 911!", "I'm calling 911!" we said simultaneously. I was off sprinting, for the first time in too long, I thought. My weary legs carried me all the way back and around the corner.

There were already two men in the water and another emptying his pockets. I decided three men in the water was enough of a safety concern, so I stayed on the shore. I shined my flashlight into the truck and tried to see if anyone else was in there, but only saw the driver. One of the men who jumped in was a retired police officer so he knew exactly how to handle the situation.

The first police car arrived within five minutes, hauling ass down the same street. He skidded to a stop, and for a moment, me and another guy thought we'd have to fish him out too. Two of the men carried her to shore where she was set on the ledge until paramedics could arrive. She seemed dazed, in shock. Drunk.

I stuck around to give my statement to the officer who was asking for witnesses, and a few stragglers who had missed the action.

One guy pulled up to us in a golf cart asking what happened. We told him and his response was one of melancholy. "Oh yeah, this happens all the time." He told us of a couple other times this had happened in the last few months, each time involving an intoxicated driver.

The night ended with us reaching the outer banks well after 4am. At one point we stood at a red light blasting "Miles on it" by Kane Brown while a cop sat opposite us. Good times.