Swimmers beware.

Residents and visitors along North Carolina’s Outer Banks appear to be taking Tropical Storm Danny in stride as it continues to churn out in the Atlantic.

Although the eye of the storm is expected to miss the Carolina coast, forecasters have warned of the potential for rip tides. Here at Nags Head, a lifeguard’s ATV carries a warning sign: “Strong Currents.”

Children play close to shore — while further out, surfers take advantage of the larger than usual waves. And, other than a ten minute rain shower that passed through here just minutes before writing this blog, beach-goers have been enjoying a sunny day with minimal winds.

On the drive to Nags Head, we saw no businesses or homes that had been boarded up — as you would expect during the approach of a more powerful storm.

On this Friday afternoon, most residents and visitors appear to be taking Danny in stride — watching, but not worrying.

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It’s not easy being FEMA these days. The Federal Emergency Management Agency took a beating in 2005 for its slow response to Hurricane Katrina. Now, government watchdog groups are criticizing FEMA for holding on to an estimated 125-thousand empty trailers at taxpayer expense.

FEMA is storing the trailers on 20 sites across the country — five of them in Mississippi. In that state alone, leasing the private land and paying maintenance and security personnel costs U.S. taxpayers anywhere from $25 million to $28 million per year, depending on whose estimates you look at.

Either figure is too much, according to David Williams, vice president of policy for Citizens Against Government Waste, a non-partisan advocacy group. “There’s absolutely no sort of logic to this,” Williams said. “There’s formaldehyde in these trailers. These trailers are falling apart.”

Eric Smith, FEMA’s assistant administrator for logistics, said his agency is in the process of evaluating which trailers should be scrapped, which can be auctioned, and which can be reused. “It’s an elaborate process that takes time,” Smith said. “I think we’re doing the right thing in making sure that we do perform due diligence on these units before we turn them over.”

Indeed, some units have already been released for other uses. For example, I received a message via Twitter that the Civil Air Patrol’s Tennessee Wing is fitting old FEMA trailers for use as mobile communications centers and mission bases.

According to Smith, even after FEMA finishes processing all the trailers, it will continue to maintain a core inventory of temporary housing units to respond to the next disaster in a timely manner.

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People on the beach taking advantage of the day!

The trees were blowing and it was raining hard this morning at 5 am when we reported for our first live shots.  What a difference a few hours makes!  Hanna wasn’t expected to be a big storm or hang around very long and she lived up to that forecast.  By Noon, there was barely a cloud in the sky and the beach is filled with people taking advantage of the sun, blue skies and slight breeze.

While walking the beach and looking for someone to take my picture in the ocean, I bumped into Paula and Jay Morris from Raleigh, NC.  I asked them to snap a shot of me, but quickly realized they had an interesting story to tell, so I turned the camera on them.  Jay and Paula were just married in Minnesota last week — that’s where Paula grew up.  Initially, like many newlyweds, they planned to go to Cancun for a honeymoon.  But their plans were canceled because of Hurricane Gustav.  Paula and Jay decided instead to stay close to home and as far away from Gustav as they could.  So they made their way to Myrtle Beach, not realizing that a smaller storm named Hanna was attempting to wreck their Plan B Honeymoon.

Good news for the Jay, Paula and everyone else on the Carolina Coast that Hanna was a very minor storm.  Twelve hours after landfall and you wouldn’t even know she was ever here.  The beaches are busy, the pool is full and life is back to normal here on the Grand Strand of South Carolina.  What a perfect day to cover the aftermath of a Tropical Storm.

Skies are often spectacularly colorful the night before a big storm

In Myrtle Beach, Hanna didn’t pack much of a punch. Some jabs, perhaps, easily deflected.

We got plenty of rain, coming down in sheets at times, or sideways with the gusts, but never really stinging my face like I’ve felt in more significant storms past.

The wind swirled and stopped and swirled some more. We might’ve had peak in the 50’s, but there was never a time where I had trouble standing.

The most impressive part of the Tropical Storm here on the Grand Strand was the angry surf, whitecaps curling and pounding the beach in rows, washing up and over my boots as I stood at the edge of the dunes for live shots.

Ike, on the other hand, looks like Hanna’s criminal cousin, ready to commit felonies across the Florida Keys and beyond. He could be very dangerous and folks would be smart to avoid crossing his path.

So of course we’re gonna head straight down there and stand in his way.

Photographer Tommy Chiu newsgathers on Myrtle Beach before Hanna

The hotel threw lounge chairs in the pool so they wouldn

11:16pm
The winds are the strongest yet, but not yet the strongest expected. That lounge chair in the pool trick we mentioned earlier… Not working! They’re being blown out of the water. We’ve been doing hits every 5 to 10 minutes all night long. We’re running up to a hotel room whenever we can to drop our wet things in a dryer. Not sure why we’re bothering!

7:47pm

Lull over. We’re live on beach. The sand is whipping up and stinging my legs. I bought waterproof pants, but they have somehow disappeared. So I’m wearing shorts.

7:23pm
There’s a lull in the storm now. I can see the horizon again. There’s even a family walking the beach.

6:16
This is my first storm chasing experience. It’s interesting how the bands come and go with different wind speeds. I’m taking shelter inside a hotel for a few minutes. The wind was howling but the suddenly just stopped. A woman here yelped “ooh!”. It’s funny how sudden silence can shock people almost as much as loud noises.

5:56pm
The sky is now a grayish white, you can no longer see the horizon line. The rain is coming down hard. I’m already drenched. My fingers are pruned. And we haven’t seen the worst of Hanna yet.

5:36pm
The wind’s picking up and the surf’s pounding the sand in Myrtle Beach, SC as Tropical Storm Hanna is getting ready to come ashore. Rick’s doing his affiliate liveshots next to a message someone scratched in the sand: “Welcome to MB Hanna”. That pretty much sums up the mood here. Locals and even some tourists are riding out the storm.