Hurricane Isabel arrived at our house as a Tropical Storm around 5 PM on Thursday, September 18, 2003 and stayed with us until 5 AM Friday September 19th.  We were extremely fortunate that we only lost a few branches off of our trees and loss of power for only 24 hours.  Others were not as fortunate.  We made the decision to have our Pearson 367 hauled on Sunday the 14th.  We had been following Isabel's trek across the Atlantic and it did not look good for the mid-Atlantic area.  We live in Alexandria, VA and keep our boat at a marina on the Chesapeake Bay.  Following are a few pictures we snapped the morning after, two days after the storm and one week later.

As you can see from the data, the winds around Herring Bay  (about on the blue line on the western shore of the Chesapeake Bay) were quite strong. The storm moved through the area until 5:00 AM.

This was a tree on the power lines about 5 blocks from our house.  We speculate this is why we had no power.
(11:30 AM September 19th. Mt. Vernon
Memorial Hwy.)

Hard to see in this picture as I was only allowed to go as far as a police barricade. This is the intersection of King and Union Streets in Old Town Alexandria, VA.  People are waist deep in the water.
(11:45 AM September 19th.)

We were not prepared for what we saw at the marina.  A, B and C Docks were destroyed.  The tide was 7.5 feet above mllw.
(A Dock--12:30 PM September 19th, 2003)

If you look carefully in this picture in the foreground there is section of light blue in the mud in front of the boat on shore, this is the boat's keel.  Behind the boat are the pilings for the seawall.  These are normally well above the water line.
(A Dock--12:30 PM--Noon September 19th.)

Many, many of these boats were damaged and several at the end were below water.
(B Dock--12:30 PM September 19th.)

Same problems here as on B Dock, many boats damaged and several sitting on the bottom.  More pictures below
(C Dock--12:30 PM September 19th.)

Most of the boats on this dock near the shore fared much better.  Not nearly as much damage as A, B and C.  Towards the end of the dock boats did not do so well.  What's wrong with this picture?  How many boats have you seen across a dock?  See D Dock picture below.
(D Dock--12:30 PM September 19th.)

Most of these boats were ok too.  This is our dock.  On the right side, half way down you can see an open space.  This is our slip and our "boat neighbor's" slip.  We had our boats pulled and we were very lucky that nothing happened to them.
(F Dock--12:30 PM September 19th.)

We decided to go back on Saturday to put our gear back on our boat and check on the other boats.  Much of the water had receded so we took our inflatable out to see the marina from the water and check out the damage.  We think this was B Dock, as it was hard to tell because all of the markers were destroyed and the docks were so badly damaged you just lost track of what you were seeing.  This boat, you will notice has been impaled on a piling.  Look closely to the right of the mast you can see it really well.
(B Dock--Noon, September 20, 2003)

This is at the end of D Dock.  The picture speaks for itself.  As the water receded you could see that these poor boats were marooned and badly damaged.  (D Dock--Noon, September 20, 2003)

This is at the end of C Dock.  Two large sailboats on the bottom. You can see the two marooned boats on D Dock in the background.  (C Dock--Noon, September 20, 2003)

There were many boats damaged in some way.  Some were pulled and lined up in the yard on Saturday afternoon.  It was a very sad sight.  These boats were so nice two days earlier.
(Yard--Noon, September 20, 2003)

This is a picture from the top of Sea Dragon's mast from F Dock.  We were fortunate enough to have our boat back in the water and back in our slip on F Dock by Sunday the 28th. (front to back Docks E, D, C, B --Noon, September 28)

I found it curious how the lines and pilings really took a beating.  In many cases it looks like the lines came right off the top of the pilings as the water kept rising.

This was taken on C Dock.  Interesting how a red hulled boat came out of the slip and went vertically across the dock in high water and hit the piling on the other side.