More than 30 miles off the Atlantic coast, a North Carolina man and his fiancée are riding out Hurricane Matthew on top of an old Coast Guard light station. Richard Neal is the owner of the podium, called Frying Pan Tower. Accessible only by boat or helicopter, the structure stands around 100 or so feet above the ocean. The tower has amazing views of the sunrise and sunset but there’s no land in sight.
Neal bought the light station from the government after the Coast Guard vacated it in 2004. Radar and GPS made the light station outdated for ships traversing the shallow Frying Pan Shoals.
Neal leases the station out as a vacation home. The area boasts of mild weather and good fishing in the Gulf Stream below.
Because of the good fishing in the Gulf Stream below and the generally mild weather through out the year, the tower is leased out by Neal as a vacation home.
They are getting some incredibly massive waves that make the tower shake and tremor. Nevertheless, steel is amazingly tough, Neal said after acknowledging that the light station is a “solid old beast”.
Neil inadvertently rode out Hurricane Arthur on the tower two years ago when he and his guests got shut in by the storm and couldn’t leave. Matthew had about the same wind speed as Arthur as they approached North Carolina. Hence, Neil believed the structure would be safe this time.
Tower shakes and leaks during storm
He said that all the structure would do is shake and leak.
Neal said he coordinated with the Coast Guard and admitted he would be on his own should anything happen to the tower.
He said that he and his fiancée discussed about going back to the mainland about two or three times. They decided to stay anyway.
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