THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, January 8, 1995 TAG: 9501080090
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY STEVE STONE AND CHRIS DINSMORE, STAFF WRITERS
LENGTH: Long : 150 lines
Those who slept through it probably were perplexed when they rose Saturday morning to power outages, broken windows, felled trees and other damage.
But lighter sleepers heard it all, as a line of severe storms kicked up wind gusts to hurricane force locally and up to 146 mph in part of North Carolina - where two people were killed.
Peak winds in Hampton Roads were recorded at Langley Air Force Base in Hampton where a gust of 81 mph was measured, well above the 74 mph of a minimal hurricane. The top wind at the National Weather Service office at Norfolk International Airport was 69 mph.
``It sounded like it could have been a hurricane,'' said Robert Simmons of Chesapeake, who was awakened by the storm early Saturday morning. Rain was being thrown against the windows, he said, and then he heard the crash as a tree came down in his front yard.
With first light, he found he was not alone. A huge tree had crashed across a neighbor's home, damaging it as a limb ripped through the roof, although no one was hurt. ``And two or three trees fell on a house behind me,'' Simmons said. ``The wind blew so hard that it cracked the frame on the back door of our house.''
Police said as many as a dozen trees were toppled or snapped in Simmons' neighborhood, the Forest Lakes section just west of Great Bridge. Several trees fell against homes and at least one broke through a house.
All day the sound of chain saws dominated the area, Simmons said, as people cleaned up.
The story was similar throughout the region.
``It was so bad I was screaming,'' said Mary Lebby, owner of the Willoughby Inn on Willoughby Spit in Norfolk. ``I was scared half to death.''
High winds ripped shingles and siding off her home, she said, uprooted trees around the neighborhood and moved a heavy freezer on her porch about 8 feet.
Approxiamtely 18,000 Virginia Power customers were left in the dark in Hampton Roads, said utility spokesman Junius Williams.
By 11:30 a.m., all but 3,100 customers - mostly in Norfolk - hadservice restored. Of those, 550 were without lights as a result of an accident in the 7300 block of Hampton Blvd.
Police said a jeep slammed into a utility pole there about 1:40 a.m. and went airborne, coming to rest on two parked cars. The pole it had hit then toppled across the vehicles. A huge transformer narrowly missed ripping into the top of the jeep, coming to rest instead just inches from the door.
``It was incredibly loud and then there were all these blue flashes,'' said Tom Dollard, who lives in a nearby apartment.
The driver of the jeep was not seriously hurt. His identity was not available. Some residents said the accident happened just as a huge burst of wind and rain hit the area.
Utility crews spent most of the day putting in a new pole, cutting away felled power lines and stringing new lines while curious residents watched. The scene was so unusual, even some of the linemen paused to take pictures before the debris was cleared.
Winds alone were blamed for knocking down seven utility poles near the corner of Military Highway and Sellger Drive, just off I-264 in Norfolk. Most of the 2,200 customers affected by that were still without power Saturday afternoon.
Repairs there took a long time in part because the poles carried numerous lines and also because several transformers were damaged and leaking and had to be cleaned up.
Williams said he expected all service would be restored by 10 p.m.
On Willoughby Spit, a concrete block wall collapsed at the Holiday Inn in the 1000 block of W. Ocean View Ave. Additionally, a commercial Dumpster was moved 3 feet, the windows of seven cars were smashed and part of the inn's stone and tar roof was ripped off.
At a neighboring condominium complex facing the Chesapeake Bay, a porch was destroyed and shingles had been torn off the roof.
``I honestly believe it was a tornado, a twister,'' said Peter Marengo, the inn's general manager.
He lives at the inn and was awake when the storm hit. ``I heard the roar .
It lasted two or three minutes. ``All the small debris out here in the courtyard wasn't blowing around, it was kind of floating,'' Marengo said.
The high winds buffeted Virginia and North Carolina as the storm line moved through, riding the border between two very different areas of weather - very warm, moist air to the south and bitter cold to the north. Snow and ice storms hit the western sections of both states overnight, while, to the east, temperatures surged into the mid 60s and torrential rains fell.
And as if ice, snow, rain and high winds were not enough, dense fog formed early Saturday morning over portions of western North Carolina, western, central and northern Virginia and in Maryland, reducing visibility to near zero in many places.
A tornado watch was issued for much of eastern Virginia and North Carolina from about 1 a.m. to dawn Saturday. And there were several reports of twisters, although none was confirmed.
The Weather Service said it appeared all damage resulted from downbursts - strong winds blowing to the ground from high in a storm, which can generate gusts up to 200 mph where they first hit the surface.
Such winds hit Seymour Johnson Air Force Base in Goldsboro about 1 a.m. Saturday with a peak gust clocked at 146 mph, the Weather Service said. Two people were killed when high winds upended mobile homes in a nearby trailer park.
In eastern North Carolina, winds of 60 mph were reported in several areas.
``We had no reported injuries or serious damage,'' said James M. Edwards, an emergency services dispatcher in Elizabeth City. ``A lot of tree limbs went down and that meant a lot of power lines were broken, but that was it.''
Residents of lower Currituck County reported 60 mph gusts in the early-morning hours while reports of 45 to 50 mph sustained winds were common in the Albemarle area. More than a half-inch of rain fell in many areas.
The stormy weather started late Friday morning with freezing rain over much of western and west central North Carolina and Virginia, where the Weather Service posted a winter storm warning.
State Police reported scores of accidents on the interstate highway system, especially along I-81 near Staunton and Harrisonburg. Along I-64 west of Richmond, more than a dozen accidents were reported. There were no serious injuries, however.
Icy roads were blamed for two 10-car pileups on Interstate 77 in Surry County, N.C., just south of the Virginia state line. The North Carolina Highway Patrol reported more than 300 accidents - most fender-benders - in the state as a result of the storm.
Late Friday, freezing rain and sleet fell from Beckley, W.Va., to as far east as Elizabeth City, although accumulations dropped to nothing on the eastern fringe of the line. In the Shenandoah Valley, however, 1 to 3 inches of snow fell in some places and was then covered with ice.
The ice storm ended overnight as warmer weather moved in, and the resulting rain quickly melted away the sheet of ice.
The storm system was followed by cooler and drier weather that brought clearing skies Saturday afternoon.
Those conditions are expected to continue into the first part of the week.
It was a stormy day in much of the nation.
In north Florida, a tornado cut a five-mile-long swath through a rural area early Saturday, injuring dozens of people and damaging or destroying scores of mobile homes. The tornado hit in the crossroads town of Summerfield, about 20 miles south of Ocala.
On the West Coast, more than 200,000 customers lost power early Saturday as a storm blasted California with heavy rain, wind and several feet of snow. MEMO: Staff writer Mason Peters contributed to this report.
ILLUSTRATION: Color photos
LAWRENCE JACKSON/Staff
Utility workers repair lines Saturday on Hampton Boulevard. A
vehicle hit a pole and struck two cars, as a burst of wind and rain
hit.
JIM WALKER/Staff
Wind knocked down this concrete block wall at the Holiday Inn in
Willoughby Spit, where homes were damaged, car windows were smashed
and trees were uprooted.
by CNB