EDITOR’S NOTE: This is a firsthand account of the storm from the Outer Banks, N.C., from reader Debbie Tierney, who chose to ride out Hurricane Irene.

MANTEO, N.C.–It’s 11:20 p.m. Friday night. Mike has gone to bed and I’m staring out into the blackness.

The street lights and dock lights in Pirates Cove have been turned off so the only lights are the people who stayed that are still up and the lights in Manteo.

It’s getting windy and it’s been raining for a few hours now, but I don’t think it’s from the Hurricane. Right now the Hurricane is in Atlantic Beach, which is near Wilmington.

It should hit us the hardest at 2 p.m. Saturday. The eye will go right smack over the hunting camp which borders the intercoastal waterway so rising water is really, really an issue there.

Then the eye should be right over Manteo, and again we are surrounded by water, so the real issues isn’t so much the wind and flying debris as the rising water when it rushes back in.

Being the big drinkers that we are, we are fully stocked with Diet Pepsi and we already ate the brownies I made last night, so tonight I made chocolate chip cookies. They should be gone by noon tomorrow.

We’ll be 5 pounds heavier by the time this is over. Tomorrow I will try and watch less TV, which causes me to snack, and try and get some sewing done.

(My son) Corey decided to stay in Elizabeth City because he has a sinus infection and didn’t want to sit in traffic. I just hope the power doesn’t go out in his motel because sitting in a hot room with no TV by yourself has to get old quick.

Hopefully if that happens, he can still watch movies on his laptop.

I hope by the time this reaches everyone up in New Jersey (where Debbie has family) that it is out to sea. It looks like they have been slowly downgrading it for the last several hours, and now our wind should be about 80 mph, which is a lot better than the original 120 mph.

We have Corey’s dog (a pitbull) here, and he is truly a fair weather dog. Doesn’t like rain, or going out when it’s too hot, too cold. But he does like wind. He was pretty excited when I took him out before putting him to bed tonight. If he liked that, he’s gonna love it tomorrow.