
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, August 17, 1995                   TAG: 9508170056
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: FROM THE NEW YORK TIMES AND THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH                                 LENGTH: Long

A CHURN FOR THE WORSE

Hurricane Felix was hovering more than 150 miles off the Atlantic coast on Wednesday, its ponderous progress toward the shore nearly stalled as it churned a vast sweep of the ocean like a giant eggbeater. But in seaside communities from Florida to New England, mountainous surf from the distant storm already was racking up a growing toll of damage.

Since Sunday in Sandbridge, an affluent seafront community, clawing surf has shredded sections of the metal sea wall built seven years ago to hold back the tide, leaving steel ribbing twisted like a kite battered by the wind. In several places, the surging seas already have breached coastal defenses, tearing wooden decks from ocean-view homes and flooding roads.

For residents of Sandbridge, at the south end of Virginia Beach, if problems of beach erosion are decreasing it is only because there is not much beach left to erode. Some of the homes are still protected by metal sea wall bulkheads, which are illegal in some states, like North Carolina, South Carolina and Maine.

At least four people have died in rough surf since the weekend, and lifeguards have closed East Coast beaches as far north as Maine. In Deal, N.J., a 17-year-old surfer drowned in Felix-churned waves. In Ocean City, Md., a swimmer disappeared in rough surf during a post-midnight dip.

Amtrak canceled trains running between New York and Florida because of the risk of flooding, fallen trees and signal problems.

By most estimates, the storm, whose winds have slowed to 80 mph, or barely hurricane strength, will not make landfall until today. But for many here, the greater fear is not when or where Felix will storm ashore, but rather how long it will continue to meander somewhere off the coast, relentlessly grinding away at beaches and shore-front resorts along more than 1,000 miles of coastline.

As Felix sat nearly stationary Wednesday afternoon, its maximum sustained winds dropped from 80 mph to 75 mph, and its hurricane-force winds, which extended 115 miles from the center at 8 p.m., extended 70 miles from the center at 11 p.m.

It was expected to move slowly to the northwest on Thursday, dropping rainfall of up to 10 inches along the coast.

David Basco, a professor of civil engineering who has studied beach erosion in Sandbridge for five years, said he was stunned by the force of the water at high tide on Wednesday.

``For this early in the storm, and for a storm that far away, there was a lot of water over the wall,'' said Basco, director of the Coastal Engineering Center at Old Dominion University in Norfolk.

With the water surge expected to reach as high as 5 feet when the storm peaks, a record level for the Virginia Beach area, he also said he was not sure how many homes on the ocean - with or without a sea wall - and in the low-lying areas beyond could withstand relentless pounding.

``This one will be quite devastating on the dunes,'' he said, ``and most of the people without walls will get a pretty good hit.''

``This one will not do the spectacular damage to buildings that Andrew did,'' said Orrin H. Pilkey, a professor of geology at Duke University who studies shoreline erosion, referring to the devastating hurricane of 1992 that caused a record $30 billion in damages mostly in south Florida.

``But this is hitting early in the hurricane season,'' he said, ``and that is going to set up many beaches for more damage from storms through the rest of the season, leaving them naked and unprotected.''

As a Category 1 hurricane, the tamest rank given by the National Hurricane Center in Miami, Felix is far weaker than most of the hurricanes that have battered the East Coast in recent years, including Andrew, Emily in 1993 and Gloria in 1985.

But experts say Felix is covering a staggering amount of territory - almost 107,000 square miles - and is moving at a yawning, indirect pace of less than 15 mph. These qualities make it distinctive in its own right, working like an oceanic eggbeater to churn wind and waters toward shorelines for a longer period of time than most hurricanes. The effects of Felix are expected to linger over some beach areas for as long as 30 hours.

Most other hurricanes have traveled straighter, swifter paths.

``This one is not crossing the shoreline quickly, the way Hugo did in 1989,'' Pilkey said. ``It's just standing out there, pounding, pounding, pounding, pounding. I expect replenished beaches to take a big hit. They are more unstable than other beaches.''

Replenished beaches are those where sand has been added to fortify an eroding coastline.

An estimated 200,000 vacationers and others fled the long, skinny Outer Banks islands and other coastal North Carolina communities, filling motels for hundreds of miles inland at the height of the tourist season.

Keywords:
INFOLINE

by CNB