Sunday morning, before Gus went off to mow the lawn at the new house, we took a drive in to Colonial Beach - just 10 minutes up the river by boat, 25 minutes by car. We had heard that they took a bad hit from Isabel - the town is right on the river, low to it. Big hit is an understatement to what destruction we saw. The Pier was demolished as you can see from this and the next picture.

This hardly gives you a taste of the damage and wreckage done in Colonial Beach. They are RIGHT on the Potomac River with homes and businesses built so close to/on the river bank. Rip-rap constructed with huge boulders was torn apart, the rocks strewn across the street and into peoples yards. Hundred-year-old trees uprooted and down on homes, down between homes (but through the walls), water rushing in to the first floor of homes and tearing out walls. Truly horrific it was.

There once was a restaurant in Colonial Beach (VA) called the Riverboat where, since it was built on pilings in the river and so was in Maryland waters, you could play Keno and place off track bets, as well as have a nice dinner – or so I’ve heard. The Riverboat was crushed as evidenced in this and the next two photos. I understand that after the storm the beach was littered with unopened liquor bottles and that folks were picking them up right and left!

Returning home from Colonial Beach we stopped at Sharks Tooth Beach in our development to see how the beach held up. It was hard to say, what with the high tides, but the debris covered the beach and covered the parking lot. The huge tree trunk out closest to the waters edge used to be on the finger islands just out in Currioman Bay. It was moved onshore in the hurricane and that was no small feat!

I'm standing on the beach looking up into the parking lot, now covered in debris, to our car in the driveway.

You may recall that a neighbor of ours, Buddy D., had left his boat (30-40 foot) on his boat lift. Well we were checking on it, peering out of our window, from time to time when around 5:00 PM on Thursday we saw it rocking. Only could mean one thing - that the tide and waves had lifted it OFF of the boatlift and that it would surely break loose. Nothing you can do about that with waters raging over your pier and dock. By 6:00 PM, I believe, we didn't see his boat anymore. Friday morning we looked up to Buddy’s dock, now missing, as was his boat. Talking with Buddy later in the day he said that Thursday/Friday morning after having seen his boat slip away, around 1:30 AM he couldn’t take it anymore and went out driving in search of his boat. Sure enough, and luckily enough, Buddy found his boat just up river in the marshland. Now how is a fellow supposed to get his boat out of the marsh and back to safety? Well, he’s been told that perhaps a crane or perhaps a helicopter can get it back on the water. My gosh!