Retrospective: Kiptopeke Evacuation

Nick Woodland 9/20/2023 (our 100th day)

5-minute read

‘Huh, looks like everyone is packing up,’ I said naively (foolishly), glancing around the campground.

We had passed places with odd names earlier in the day in our long drive down the dagger-shaped piece of land – an isolated enclave of Virginia – that separates Chesapeake Bay from the Atlantic. Places like Chincoteague for one, or Accomac, Exmore, Pungoteague, Wachapreague, Nassawadox. Where in the world are we, I thought? What is this land of tongue twisters? Did they just make up a word and put it in front of ‘teague’. So that you don’t think I’m rolling through this fine country of ours like an imbecile I will tell you that the words have Algonquin roots.

There were billboards for Royal Farms chicken tenders practically every mile. ‘Try Tucker’s Tenders Meal!’ I don’t know who Justin Tucker is but he really thinks the Tenders Meal at Royal Farms is where it is at. He wore us down with his insistence and confidence and that winning smile. ‘There he is again, honey. We gotta stop, we just gotta!’ So we did and the span of time between the glory of that beautifully moist chicken with its crunchy exterior as it went down and the agony of its bloated presence in our gizzards was dizzyingly short. 

‘Damn that Justin Tucker! Damn him!’

Pulling in to Kiptopeke State Park at the very tip of the dagger was a relief. It always is after a long drive behind the wheel of our rig: 52’ and 15,000 pounds of steel and aluminum and rubber and cheap paneling. Driving is not terribly difficult, depending on conditions. I have gotten used to the whims of weather and roads and drivers. Big rigs roaring by will always make the trailer sway a little. Gusts of wind will do the same. I have learned to hold the wheel loosely when I know one is coming. If I know. I let the rig move of its own accord, trying not fight it. It will all come back in line shortly. Hold that wheel too tight and you know what color my knuckles will turn. Busy roads make me nervous. Who is going to pull out in front of me? I ask constantly. That guy in the box truck who is probably late for a delivery? That lady in the Escalade doing her makeup with her phone squashed between her shoulder and ear? That carpenter in the pickup truck with a bunch of junk in the bed. I’m sure the reflection on the windshield from all that shit on his dashboard is impacting his view. That dude in the white van with 16 ladders on the roof? The guy on the dirt bike revving the throttle, bouncing up and down, impatience radiating from his every pore. You never know and that uncertainty more than the mileage or the weather or the wind or the big rigs is what wears me down.

So entering our campground at the end of a drive and letting the inertia and momentum of the day subside is blissful. Stopping at the entrance station to Kiptopeke we see that it is closed but our name is there on an envelope hanging from a clip screwed to the wall. Wendy retrieves it and it has the info (site tag, hang tag, map, regulations) that we need to check in. We approach our site slowly, getting a lay of the land, figuring out where things are as we go: the bathrooms, dumpsters, dump station. I love the finality of killing the engine of our Tahoe once the camper is parked, leveled and set up. Man does that feel good for some reason.

Kiptopeke used to be the location of a cross-harbor ferry terminal back in the 50’s. The construction of the big Chesapeake Bay Bridge/Tunnel put an end to that. What is decidedly unique and quirky about Kiptopeke is the unusual story of the Concrete Fleet. I have never seen this anywhere else. Concrete ships were brought in and scuttled in a line about 100 meters out from shore as a breakwater for the ferry terminal while it was in operation. Time has taken a toll on the fleet and they are now nothing more than massive bird sanctuaries. It seems the pelicans rule. They amass in huge numbers out there and at dusk they head out in pods and dive for fish. We sat on the small beach at Kiptopeke while a storm raged far out in the bay and behemoth cargo containers lay in wait and watched the pelicans spear themselves into the water. The sun set behind the fleet creating bizarre silhouettes as it did. We swam in the warm, shallow waters while the pelicans fished and the fleet sat immobile like a giant floating city. Imagining, as we swam, that it was a city ruled by pelicans. What would that be like? we wondered. What are the social interactions in an isolated area with a multitude of birds all vying for space. You could write a book about that, or a movie, we thought. The glitter on the water from the setting sun sent fiery splashes into the air as the girls kicked and played in the water. We rode back to camp on our bikes in the gloaming in bare feet.

The next day the wind increased and the forecast took a turn for the worse. Throughout the day I continued to look at the forecast and watched as expected winds continued to increase, as hazardous weather warnings were being added: beach hazards, coastal flood advisories, high surf warnings and then finally, storm surge warnings. The whole shebang. I found myself at one point researching the wind speed needed to knock an RV over. Supposedly, a 55mph gust could do it in the right conditions and settings. Which direction were we facing? If we were facing directly into the wind then I was sure we could sustain much higher winds than if we were broadside to them. We were facing north and winds were expected from the east. Damn! Could I hook up to the car to keep it more stable? I disconnected our water hose and used it to fill our fresh water tank, thereby adding some ‘ballast’ to the rig. At this point – trying to keep it to myself, lest I alert the children – I was getting a little nervous. Should we leave? Should we stay? I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know where we would go.

Sitting outside in our camp chairs around our fire ring, with a big pile of firewood ready to burn, the camp host, Kenny, drove in on his golf cart.

‘Hey folks, just wanted to make sure you are keeping abreast of the weather reports,’ he said and my heart did a nosedive in my chest.

‘Yeah, we are,’ I said quickly, trying to seem confident and in-the-know.

‘Well, winds are expected to get pretty high. 50 or 60 mile an hour gusts possible. My rig survived some 80 mph gusts last year, but not sure I’d want to subject it to that again. Storm surge too. They’re calling it a tropical storm.’

Tropical storm, I moaned in my head. Good lord. Now I really didn’t know what to do. It seemed like we should leave. Was that necessary, though? You didn’t just throw the bikes on the roof and the suitcases in the trunk and pull out, you know.

‘Well, I’ll let you know if I hear more. Just wanted to make sure I got to everyone,’ said Kenny, pulling me out of my reverie.

After that the mood shifted slightly. The kids still had no idea about the weather, nor did they care. S was in her room and A & T were running around outside with T’s bike. Indecisiveness reared its ugly head and I found myself with a slightly elevated heart level and a set of hands that didn’t quite know what to do with themselves.

Looking back, we should have known something was up. More and more people were packing up. Probably just checking out, we figured. We headed to the beach. When we got back the place look decidedly more empty. Finally, W (as usual, the one who will take action) asked our neighbor across the road. ‘Where you headed?’ she said.

‘Don’t know really. They are closing the campground. Have to be out by 8 tonight.’

‘Really!?’

‘Yeah, not sure if they told you or what. You might want to check with the rangers and make sure. Just in case.’

‘Ok, yeah they never told us, but we just got back from the beach. Maybe they came through when we were down there. You’d think they leave a door tag or something like that, you know!’

‘Where are you going to go?’ I asked, genuinely curious.

‘Not sure. West, I guess. We’ve got friends up in Richmond. Maybe head there,’  he answered dubiously while he wrestled a kayak onto the roof of his one-ton dually Ram. His fifth wheel behind him looked way too low to hook up to his kingpin. 

‘Ok, well, guess we better start packing,’ we answered, lamely.

Kenny came around the bend on his golf cart and confirmed for us that the campground was closing and everyone, including himself, the host, had to be out by 8pm. 

I was surprisingly relieved to have the decision made for me. No more wishy-washy indecisiveness. Now I could act.

We told the girls and they did well with the news. I was a little worried they’d get nervous about being evacuated due to an approaching storm.

‘Remember our talk a couple weeks ago about doing some test runs on packing up the camper quickly in the case of an emergency. Well, guess what! Time for the real deal. Let’s get to work, guys!’

Wendy put them to work in their room while she attacked the kitchen. Normally, packing up our gear takes a couple hours. We didn’t have a couple hours. I scurried around with the bikes and the camp chairs and the outdoor kitchen and then found that my hands were shaking so bad I couldn’t clip a buckle. I had to stop and catch my breath to let them settle. Then I dove into packing again.

I noticed that we finished and were pulling out while our neighbor with the kayak was still wrestling with his fifth wheel. He couldn’t get the rig high enough because he hadn’t put enough blocks underneath. The jacks were maxed out. I wanted to help but truth be told I also wanted to get my family the hell out of there and I was glad that I was not him. So long pal, good luck.

As we pulled away I realized it was 6pm, we hadn’t eaten, I was sweaty and juiced up on adrenaline. I was a little shaky from the nerves and the lack of food. It was twilight as we pulled up to the Chesapeake Bay Bridge/Tunnel toll booth.

‘Your propane tanks off?’ the toll operator asked me.

‘Huh?’ I said in a hazy fog of unreality.

‘Yes,’ said Wendy from the passenger seat. ‘Yes, they are off.’

‘Oh right, yeah those things are off,’ I said, totally unconvincingly and then decided to ask a stupid question, like I was some tourist out on vacation. ‘So how much of the bridge is a bridge and how much is a tunnel? I mean how much of the bridge is a tunnel? Like how much of it is underground? You know?’

The lady stared at me and then laconically answered, ‘About a third of it is tunnel, sir. The rest is bridge.’ You lying jackass, she probably wanted to add.

We drove over one of the country’s most amazing bridge/tunnel combos I’ve seen in the gathering dusk. The tunnels barely had enough room for the trailer, it took all my focus to keep us in our lane. It was such an unusual time to be driving. We’d never been out on the road in the rig at night. I imagined I could see the tropical storm off the coast as it barreled its way toward us, pushing the ocean out in front like a snow plow. I shivered at the prospect and was suddenly very, very glad we had decided to leave.

The question now was where to go.

I had my house, my children and wife, my belongings, my whole life with me and I didn’t know where I was going or even much less where I was. I felt, for a fleetingly brief moment, a sense of serious desperation. 

Well, I don’t know where to go! 

I haven’t planned this at all. 

I don’t even know what to punch into the godforsaken map and we are about to head into a sizable city on the other side of this bridge or tunnel or whatever the hell it is. 

I want to go west, but how far? 

Which way should I turn here?

We haven’t even had dinner!

I’ve never driven this thing in the dark!

What are we doing!

Finally, we settled on a place to go and W saved the day, as she does, by finding a campground with an open spot and booked it. She pulled snacks out of a bag for us. My hands stopped shaking and I eased my grip on the wheel. The nav system was finally, blessedly displaying our route in that beautiful and comforting blue line.

We drove on into a pretty glorious sunset in rural Virginia. My nerve endings were frayed and the two hour drive after that wild afternoon wrung me out. We passed a sign for the Great Dismal swamp. The site Wendy had booked turned out to be a pull-through, meaning I would not have to back in to a site in the dark. I loved Wendy for that!