Harker's Island No Match for Bonnie's Wicked Winds

With the wind howling, Cab Ramsey jumped in his motor home Wednesday night and headed inland. When he got back to his house, the wind gauge read 148 m.p.h.

"We bailed out. We left the wind gauge to find out what happened," Ramsey explained. "I was glad I wasn't here [when I saw what the gauge said when I got back]."

The same winds ripped out the canopy and the gas pumps at Eastard's market.

"The canopy itself is designed to withstand 110 m.p.h.," said store owner Dennis Burke. "The pumps, there's no telling what they're designed for. They were hooked with two inch pipes underneath. It snapped that off like twigs."

The winds may have been wicked on Harker's Island, but the water wasn't a big problem. There were just a few inches left standing on the island Friday afternoon. Residents say the tidal surge just didn't come. For that reason, they feel very lucky.

"Amazingly mild damage for the speed in which she traveled through the state, very slow-- even stalling at times, to be in a category three hurricane, I am very impressed with the lack of damage that I have heard about," Burke explained.

On Harker's Island, Bonnie will be remembered as a sinful storm. She sliced the steeple off of a church that just happens to sit right on Bonnie Lane.