Residents along river dealing with storm

Great Neck community resident Steve Foster stood in his yard at the edge of a frothy Neuse River Wednesday holding a weather radio.

Waves washed over the deck boards on a small pier at the edge of his property.

"I think this is all we're going to get. It's probably three feet above normal," Foster said.

Foster estimated that the wind might be blowing 25 to 35 mph from the northeast.

Some 250 miles southeast, a storm was brewing in the Atlantic, bringing the high winds to the North Carolina coast and the threat of flooding along the Neuse River.

The National Hurricane Center said that the system had a high potential of becoming a tropical or subtropical cyclone later Wednesday or Thursday as it drifts west closer to the coast.

Winds were predicted to gust up to 45 mph in the Havelock area, higher along the Neuse River and along areas of the Carteret County coast. Anywhere from 2 to 4 inches of rain could fall, according to the National Weather Service.

Along Adams Creek Road, volunteer fireman and Craven County Commissioner Theron McCabe was pounding stakes into the shoulder of the road near a flooded marshy area that is one of the first to flood when the wind blows hard from the northeast.

"This is the only way in or out," McCabe said as he used the handle of an ax to measure the water depth.

"We put these stakes in here so we can tell where the road is if we have to get in here,"

he said. "I think it could come up another couple of feet tonight."

Toward the end of Belangia Road and Godfrey Boulevard, waves from the Neuse were pounding into bulkheads sending spray into the air.

Diane Bruton, who lives across the street, said her family keeps a small sailboat down on the beach there, but moved it to higher ground in anticipation of rising waters.

"The wind is blowing. That's the news," she said. "We just moved here in June and we haven't seen it blow like this before.

"We've been watching the water, and as you can see it's splashing over the bulkhead. It looks like the ocean, doesn't it?"

This particular area of lower Craven County had severe flooding from Hurricane Isabel in 2003.

"When Isabel came, the water was up to that deck," Foster said indicating the house behind him. "It didn't quite get into the cottage though."

"This house over here floated off its foundation. It's sitting there just where it came down," Foster said of the next door neighbor's bungalow.

Stanley Kite, Craven County emergency management director, said some flooding is possible in the Adams Creek area, but he said it would be nothing like Isabel. He's worried high winds could cause power outages.

"This is a nuisance storm," he said.

The storm is expected to move inland and then northeast, with wind and water levels falling by Thursday afternoon, according to the weather service.