Storms

Our show cancellation count stands at four. Early in the season we had two days of cancellation because of the smoke from the wildfire nearby at Stumpy Point. That fire has been fully contained and is mostly extinguished (underground peat still smolders but recent rain has mostly put it out). We still get some smoke from a fire way south of us but it is not that bad.

We had one full rain out about three weeks ago. That storm was so enduring that we didn’t even get into costume, we just sat around and waited for them to call it.

It has been a very dry spring and early summer here and we are (or were) under extreme drought conditions. But for the past few days there has been a system feeding warm moist air coming up the coast from the Gulf and we’ve been having tremendous storms with torrential rain daily.

Two nights ago we all got into costume, Indians fully painted. All was set to go. Five minutes, please! Then a brief hold was announced so that the sound system could be re-booted (huge trouble with the sound equipment this year).

You know what it is like when storms are approaching and the wind kicks up and the light show with air-to-air lightning and the air-to-ground lightning hitting the water. We all watched that while we waited. There were oohs and ahhs when it stuck nearby and those who are afraid of lightning (like me) stayed near to cover.

Ten minutes after we should have started they called a hold for weather and we all retreated to the dressing rooms. Well, not all of us – when a weather hold is called the most of the sound equipment must be struck. Also much of the pyro. Because of lightning the main light towers are powered down.

I suppose in the early decades of The Lost Colony they just waited to see if the rain would pass. When I started in 1992 those in charge would phone the weather service at the airport to get the official forecast. They had radar!

Nowadays we all sit in the dressing rooms and look at the radar on our smart phones. We trade weather apps. Here’s one that shows real time lightning strikes! We parse the nuance of the storms – if it a drifts a little south it might clear up! There’s a break in the rain in Wanchese!

We sat there in costume for thirty minutes and they called the show. We made our way to the parking lot in the drizzle with lightning crashing nearby. It actually seemed to be clearing up!

But no – about twenty minutes later all hell broke loose with heavy rain, scary lightning and thunder booms and the wind blowing so hard that the rain was going sideways. It lasted until nearly midnight.

Then yesterday we had daytime rehearsal. It was muggy enough to cut with a knife. We broke at about three o’clock just in time for more major storms and heavy rain. Fight call was cancelled, but the storms stayed to our south and we went through the show with no stops.

It was a humid wet muck of a show.

The storms continue to funnel up the coast this evening. We'll see.