Chincoteague Must Be Evacuated by Noon Saturday

While I was watching the Weather Channel before noon, they were showing an interview with the Governor of Virginia - and I laughed aloud when he said that the County of Accomack had instituted mandatory evacuations of low-lying areas, but the Town of Chincoteague  was under a mandatory evacuation of all non-residents, and evacuation for residents was voluntary.  (We Chincoteaguers are hard-headed cusses.) I checked the town's website, and all it said was that non-residents had to be gone from the island by 6 p.m.  Now the website says that all residents are under mandatory evacuation orders, and must be off the island by noon tomorrow.  Only "emergency personnel" will be allowed to stay.  -  The last time there was a mandatory evacuation, friends and families of the emergency personnel stayed on the island, as well.  -  The new town offices and complex has been built in Deep Hole, where the ground is low, soft, and surrounded by marshes.  I feel pretty sure the folks who stay will do so in the top story of the Fire Station on Main Street...  That's where they usually congregate during storms.
The forecasters say that there will be a four to eight-foot storm surge on top of over a foot of rain, plus the fact that it's also time for the higher-than-usual neap tides.  Kathy thinks that 8 feet of water would reach the window on the staircase at Grandpa's old house, but I think the window is at about 10 feet above the ground.  (I used to spend summer afternoons at that window, sitting on the stairs and reading Zane Gray books.)  It doesn't really matter, but we were trying to put that amount of water at a place we know well.  Tomorrow I'm going to write about mondegreens, and leave Irene alone.