On Friday, August 26th Eddie Christian and his daughter Ashley locked up the merchandise at Daughtry Jewelers at the end of a very busy day. Located 65 miles off the coast of North Carolina; their small town of Goldsboro, NC was bracing for Hurricane Irene’s landfall the next day. They took extra precautions to protect their merchandise and minimize damage, including unplugging computers, putting extra items in the safe and moving critical items upstairs to their 2nd floor. Located in Berkley Mall, neither Eddie nor Ashley expected a lot of damage. Despite the enormous size of the storm, which NASA satellite data indicated was one-third the length of the U.S. Atlantic coastline, Irene had already been downgraded to a category 1 storm and Goldsboro had weathered much worse.