NORFOLK, Va. — Around this time in 2003, 19 years ago, the entire region was bracing for impact.
Hurricane Isabel had just developed into a category 5 storm, the first in the Atlantic since Hurricane Mitch five years earlier.
Peak winds reached as high as 165 mph offshore before the hurricane was downgraded to a category 2 storm when it landed on the coast of North Carolina.
Isabel came ashore near Cape Lookout with sustained winds of around 100 mph.
Isabel produced a storm surge of 7 to 10 feet in North Carolina. The storm then raced northwestward passing just west of Richmond and just west of Winchester.
Hurricane-force gusts then pounded Hampton Roads, ripping signs off buildings, downing hundreds of trees, and shutting off power to millions across Virginia for more than a week.
13News Now followed along with storm chaser William Coyle when the storm hit.
Today, almost twenty years later, with dozens of other storms under his belt, he still refers to Isabel as a “monster.”
“This thing kept going,” said Coyle. “You could hear it roar through the trees and power lines.”
There were stories to share all over the region.
Like the man who was forced to take cover in his van and barely made it out alive when a tree fell onto the vehicle.
There were happier moments too, like the salvaged wedding 13News Now covered in Yorktown just two days after the storm.
When all was said and done, Hurricane Isabel took a devastating toll on Virginia, costing the state more than $1 billion in damage, making it the costliest natural disaster ever in the Commonwealth.