Originally Posted by
Rip Bass
It seems to me that the storm surge from hurricanes doesn’t have much effect on those far eastern rivers,like the Tank,Gator and North. The hurricane wind piles up the water in the western end of the sounds,when it recedes it pulls dead water out of the swamps and kills the fish. That high water doesn’t come up out of the ocean,it comes from the eastern part of the sounds. The water in the east end of the sounds can actually be low during a hurricane. A large rain storm like Floyd in 1999 floods the whole sound and can kill the fish. Hurricane Irene in 2011 caused and near total fish kill in the western end of Albemarle sound from a storm surge. It devastated Chowan and Roanoke,there was huge rafts of dead fish piled up. It was sickening and heartbreaking to see. The Hwy 45 bridge across Roanoke has a USGS water monitor on it,it showed oxygen content in the river at 0% for nine days. Everything that couldn’t get out of the water died,except blackfish or bowfins or grinnels,whatever you call them. I never saw a dead one of them.