THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, December 24, 1994 TAG: 9412240331
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY STEVE STONE AND LANE DEGREGORY, STAFF WRITERS
LENGTH: Long : 134 lines
What was to have been a mighty northeaster has developed a split personality and left its weaker side to Virginia and North Carolina.
Meteorologists were still calling for increasing winds, high tides and beach erosion today after the coastal storms that had been expected to merge defied predictions and followed separate paths Friday.
The first skipped past the mid-Atlantic region and intensified, pounding the New England coast.
At an ocean buoy in the storm's path, winds of 64 mph were reported Friday, with gusts to 83 mph, well above the threshold of 74 mph for a minimal hurricane. The strong winds built 39-foot seas. And at 6 p.m., with the storm center about 150 miles south of New Bedford, Mass., gusts to 81 mph were reported at the Nantucket, Mass., airport.
The second storm, which was pummeling the lower portion of the Outer Banks on Friday, was expected to be off the Virginia coast today. But its tides were expected to be 2 1/2 to 3 feet above normal - not as high as originally feared.
The greatest threat of coastal flooding and beach erosion will be at high tide, around midday and possibly at high tide late tonight.
Given Friday's sunny skies and seasonal temperatures in Hampton Roads, it would have been easy to think the Christmas Eve Storm never arrived. But the unrelenting winds indicated otherwise; they blew in from the northeast at a steady 25 to 35 mph along the Virginia and North Carolina coasts.
Anyone who sought more proof of the storm's power need only have traveled south along the Outer Banks. When Brian and Sandra Peckins awoke Friday to sunny skies in Duck, they thought the storm had passed.
Snowy clouds scuttled across a Carolina blue backdrop. Wind and waves were whipping along the shore. And at the cottage the Alexandria couple were renting for Christmas, everything seemed fine.
That impression changed after they drove about 40 miles south on N.C. Route 12, heading toward Hatteras Island at high tide.
They never made it. They turned back when they found the sea where the road should have been.
``It's a lot worse than I thought,'' said Brian Peckins, who had bundled his 16-month-old son in a blanket for the ride.
``I've never seen anything like this,'' Sandra Peckins said. ``I'm a little concerned for our safety. But we're not making any plans to leave - yet.''
Up the coast in Virginia Beach, some Sandbridge residents placed sandbags along their driveways and at doorsteps, but the only thing that flowed against them was a snowy-looking layer of ocean foam.
On the beachfront, however, the storm's tides ate away precious sand from around dozens of homes that lost protective bulkheads to Hurricane Gordon last month.
In several places where bulkheads were left undermined and sagging after Gordon, the new tidal onslaught finished the job of flattening the ribbons of rusty steel.
``That was 15 feet high? Naw, it couldn't have been,'' Alex Manning of Virginia Beach said as a friend pointed out a fallen bulkhead with a flashlight beam early Friday. Most of the time all that could be seen was foam and an occasional spray of water. But once in a while, the bulkhead, flat on its side, was visible through the surf.
Manning and his friend, Cliff Battle of Newport News, had been in Sandbridge for a Christmas party and decided to go out exploring before heading home. They got soaked for their efforts when they wandered up to the edge of a driveway that, thanks to erosion, now drops off 10 feet. A wave sliced in and burst in a foamy spray, covering them.
The pair made a quick retreat to their pickup.
A half-moon dominated the sky, dimmed only slightly by a cellophane haze of fast-moving clouds.
Winds howled through the night and the day, although there were only a few showers. The winds, at 35 mph along the shore, gusting to 50 mph at times, coated car windshields with a white, salty mist and made it a struggle to opening a door.
The scene was similar on the Outer Banks. By dawn, a gray gauze of clouds filled the sky allowing only a few streaks sunlight to filter through. Snowball-sized tufts of foam flew across the highway.
About a half-mile south of the Pea Island National Wildlife Refuge Ranger Station, waves washed over the wall of sandbags that transportation workers had just repaired. By noon, the ocean had spilled completely across N.C. Route 12, pooling hubcap-deep and depositing inches of mud along the way.
The Atlantic was within 75 yards of merging with the Pamlico Sound.
The road - an umbilical cord to civilization for Hatteras Island's 5,000 permanent residents - looked like it was about to go.
``If it was just us, we might go ahead and try it,'' Brian Peckins said, eyeing the quicksand-like muck covering the two-lane highway. ``But we didn't bring a bottle for our boy. So we're not going to risk getting stuck.''
Highway crews worked through high tide, trying to scoop sand off N.C. Route 12 on Pea Island.
Long fingers of the Atlantic clawed across the highway at several spots in Kitty Hawk, even before high tide. Children played tag with waves sweeping across the center of the two-lane road.
Some residents filled plastic garbage bags with sand and stacked them in front of their homes - a makeshift, last hope in the face of the expected onslaught.
On the east side of the highway in Kitty Hawk, three houses undermined by Hurricane Gordon teetered precariously above the tide. With each gust, the wooden structures creaked loudly, drowning out even the ocean's roar.
A brown 1970s-era box of a beach home with rust trim around the windows seemed doomed. Its porch was askew. Hanging fast on a railing was the home's nameplate: ``Drift Away.''
On Hatteras Island, tides crept across N.C. Route 12 north of Buxton and between Frisco and Hatteras Village. Ferry service to Ocracoke continued into the night, but was suspended for Cedar Island and Swan Quarter because of winds Friday afternoon. The Cape Hatteras Lighthouse was holding on tight.
Wally DeMaurice, the meteorologist in charge of the weather service office in Buxton, shrugged it all off: ``This is typical Christmas weather for Hatteras Island.'' MEMO: Correspondent Tom Yocum contributed to this report.
WATCHES AND WARNINGS
A coastal flood warning through today for the Virginia coast and the
Chesapeake Bay south of Windmill Point and for the entire North Carolina
coast.
A gale warning on the Chesapeake Bay and on the Albemarle and Pamlico
sounds.
A heavy-surf advisory through today along the Virginia coast.
A high-wind warning for all of Hampton Roads.
ILLUSTRATION: Color photo by Lawrence Jackson, Staff
Bulkheads at Sandbridge took a lot of punishment from 15-foot waves
caused by
Color map my John Earle, Staff
ASSOCIATED PRESS photo
Consuelo Berkman gets soaked by a large wave as it pounds the rocks
at the north end of Carolina Beach, N.C., Friday afternoon. Berkman
was out photographing the waves caused by a northeaster storm. The
storm caused flooding throughout the area as heavy rain, wind, and
waves hit the coast.
KEYWORDS: WEATHER EROSION STORM by CNB