At one point, Hurricane Bill
was a monstrous category 4 storm out in the Atlantic. It was
poised to brush the coastline of Nova Scotia so I decided to
head out for an intercept. Nova Scotia often receives the remnants
of hurricanes but this one looked like it was going to strike
as at least a category one storm. I teamed up with Mark Robinson
and Cyclone Research Group founder, Tim Millar from Florida and
we hit the road, driving for 2 days from Toronto to Halifax.
We were then joined by Angry Planet producer, Peter Rowe.
Hurricane Bill struck during
daylight hours which is always preferable to a landfall at night.
Conditions began to deteriorate in the morning and peaked in
early afternoon as the storm brushed the coastline, bringing
with it heavy rains, high winds and dangerous waves. We targeted
the south coast from Halifax to Sherbrooke where the largest
waves were forecast to be. At Lawrencetown Beach, a crowd had
gathered to watch the hurricane and many of these people got
quite the surprise whenever a large set of waves would come in
and overwhelm the rocky barrier. The conditions were very dangerous
since the waves could easily either sweep you out to sea or smash
you into the rocks. Neither of which was desirable.
The water had risen up past
the beach and was smashing the wooden stairwell that led down
to the beach. At one point while I was filming close to the waves,
a large wave came in and slammed me with a 2X4 piece of the stairs
with large nails sticking out of it. Luckily, the nails were
on either side of the part of the wood that hit my leg. After
that, It was time to continue down the coast.
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