THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, August 16, 1995 TAG: 9508160422
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY STEVE STONE, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 121 lines
It looks to be a minimal hurricane, but in terms of flooding, it has the potential for maximum impact - especially if it continues to follow the track of the 1933 hurricane that inundated downtown Norfolk.
Hurricane Felix is not the classic threat that residents of the Outer Banks and Hampton Roads are used to - a hurricane sliding northeast, just offshore. Instead, Felix is taking dead aim from the Atlantic.
``We can really only find one other storm that took a track like this, and that was in 1933,'' said John Hope, tropical specialist at The Weather Channel in Atlanta. ``That came in with a huge storm surge and flooded the Hampton Roads area.''
Hugh Willoughby, a meteorologist at the National Hurricane Center in Miami, said of Felix: ``It's not an Andrew or a Hugo. The danger isn't the wind. It's the flooding and storm surge.''
If Felix holds to its predicted course and maintains its current strength or intensifies as expected, ``we're really going to have problems,'' said Jim Talbot, deputy coordinator of Emergency Services in Norfolk.
If Felix comes in south of Oregon Inlet, the threat to Hampton Roads will begin to decrease. But forecasts Tuesday remained consistent into the evening, and they were not encouraging.
``If this one does make landfall north of Oregon Inlet or closer to the border, I can see a potential for a flooding event close to if not surpassing that of 1933,'' Talbot said. It is the nightmare scenario: upwards of 7 feet to 9 feet of water flowing through Ghent, Larchmont and other low-lying sections of the city.
``This worst-case scenario is something that we spent years studying and planning for,'' Talbot said late Tuesday, ``and we are as ready as we can possibly be.''
There are several reasons for his worries:
The storm is huge. Most hurricanes are relatively compact, and the field of hurricane-force winds spiraling around the center - the eye - is small. Felix's width equals the length of the entire North Carolina coast, and hurricane winds - in excess of 74 - mph extend 140 miles from the center; tropical storm winds of 39 mph and above extend 230 miles.
It may intensify before landfall. The storm is on the verge of moving into the warm waters of the Gulf Stream, where it is expected to regain some of the strength it lost days ago, possibly having top sustained winds of 100 mph at landfall, with gusts to 125 mph.
It will bottle up the Chesapeake Bay. As a hurricane moves forward, it pushes up a wall of water ahead of it. This storm surge is what is blamed for most coastal damage from hurricanes. In the case of Felix, the surge is likely to serve as a giant plug, pushing into the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay. It will effectively keep all water in the Bay trapped there and add to its volume.
It will push Bay water south. If Felix comes in south of Hampton Roads, its counterclockwise wind patterns over the Chesapeake would blow the Bay waters southward. However, because the storm surge would keep the water from escaping out of the mouth of the Bay, the water would instead inundate low-lying areas.
Much of the region is just a few feet above sea level - especially Norfolk. Most of Norfolk would be flooded, as would numerous other low-lying areas like the Edgewater and Larchmont sections, Willoughby, much of Ocean View and much of Norfolk Naval Base. Virginia Beach, Portsmouth and Chesapeake also could see heavy flooding in low-lying areas. That's in addition to the coastal sections usually threatened by a hurricane.
The storm is expected to be with us for a while. Because of its immense size and a predicted slowing of its forward motion, Felix is likely to affect the area for at least 24 hours, just as it did Bermuda.
``That could put us through two of three high-tide cycles'' with hurricane or tropical storm conditions, Talbot said.
That's why officials in Norfolk, Virginia Beach, Hampton and Poquoson have urged residents in flood-prone and coastal areas, or who live in mobile homes, to consider leaving early. And evacuations may be urged today in parts of all those cities, especially if Felix comes in slightly north of the forecast track.
Hope, who has made a career of tracking and forecasting hurricanes, said there is nothing to suggest Felix will not closely follow the expected track, coming inland over the Outer Banks late tonight or early Thursday.
And there was nothing happening meteorologically Tuesday night to push the storm away at the last moment.
``We think it's going to march right along, pretty fast tonight,'' Hope said late Tuesday, ``and then slow down. . . . I'm afraid this is not going to be in and out of there very fast.''
The storm already showed evidence of intensifying. The eye, which had vanished days ago as the storm neared Bermuda, reappeared Tuesday night. ``It's pretty well formed, so I think in the next few hours we're going to see this increase (in strength) come,'' Hope said.
The region will feel its effects long before the eye arrives, however, he said.
``The wind will begin to pick up during the day along the Outer Banks and later in the day up north'' in Hampton Roads, Hope said.
By evening, hurricane-force winds should be hammering the Outer Banks. Strong tides are likely to eat away at the beaches from the endangered Hatteras Lighthouse northward to the fragile Sandbridge in Virginia Beach. ILLUSTRATION: Color photos
DREW C. WILSON/Staff
Myk Williams, 23, of Kill Devil Hills, is playing fast and loose
with the storm. By this afternoon, he may be wishing he hadn't
taunted Felix.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
People leave the Outer Banks on the Washington Baum bridge. The
evacuation is expected to cost Dare businesses $4 million a day.
Graphic
STAFF
PAST HURRICANES
Several hurricanes have passed through the Hampton Roads area in
this century.
[For complete graphic, please see microfilm]
KEYWORDS: HURRICANE FELIX by CNB