THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, August 17, 1995 TAG: 9508170522
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY MIKE MATHER AND TOM HOLDEN, STAFF WRITERS
DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH LENGTH: Medium: 89 lines
More than 200 Sandbridge homes would be in peril if Hurricane Felix stalled near the fragile strip of coastline as the Ash Wednesday storm did in 1962, coastal experts said Wednesday.
Forecasts issued Wednesday night suggested that Felix could be 40 to 60 miles east of Sandbridge late Thursday night. The storm is moving so slowly and has such a large footprint that it could hammer Sandbridge with a storm surge and three high tides for 24 to 36 hours.
The Ash Wednesday storm - a Northeaster that flattened the 50 Sandbridge cottages - lingered for five high tides.
``The folks there are in a terrible quandary,'' said Orrin Pilkey, a coastal geologist at Duke University. ``There isn't a way out anymore. That shoreline wants to be where the houses are.''
Of the 243 oceanfront homes in Sandbridge, 170 have protective bulkheads. But 48 of the seawalls were damaged or destroyed by a November northeaster.
``There will be some damage, and it will be cleaned up,'' said David Basco, an Old Dominion University professor who has spent years studying Sandbridge. ``This is only a Category 1 hurricane. The most important thing is the storm surge.''
The storm surge was the most devastating part of the Ash Wednesday storm, now a benchmark for Middle Atlantic weather systems.
A storm surge is basically a bulge of water pushed ahead by an approaching storm. As the bulge of water is shoved into bays, rivers, or against the coast, flooding results. The storm surge is usually responsible for a storm's greatest damage.
Storm-surge damage can be compounded by high tide and a slow-moving, or stationary, weather system.
``The duration of (the Ash Wednesday) storm was unique,'' Basco said. ``Hurricanes usually have similar damaging effects, but they usually move through and don't hang around.''
Damage from the Ash Wednesday storm virtually leveled the small Sandbridge community and accounted for $8 million in damage citywide. A city-sponsored study in 1985 suggested that an equally strong storm would again destroy most of the Sandbridge homes and inflict $600 million damage in the city.
But most experts don't believe Hurricane Felix has that punch.
While Felix shares some of the Ash Wednesday storm characteristics - namely, they both moved slowly and followed the same path - comparing the two is an inexact science.
There is no way of telling how long Felix will linger, or if it will slam the Virginia coast at all. The finicky Atlantic system confounded early predictions.
Felix's winds are whipping faster than those of the Ash Wednesday storm, but hurricanes typically move much quicker than sluggish Northeasters.
Also, the dynamics of Sandbridge have changed in three decades. In 1962, there were barely 50 homes. Now, about 1,700 dot a much-thinner strip of sand, ravaged by more than 30 years of erosion.
Sandfiddler Road took the brunt of the wind and waves on Wednesday. By mid-day, bits of wood and sea grass littered the road. Sections were under six inches of water at high tide.
Waves thumped against steel bulkheads with such frequency a small stream of water began to flow off the dune line at Sandfiddler Road and Anglefish Lane and into Frank Guido's front yard.
Under blustery skies and an occasional pelting rain, Guido and his wife, Chris, used shovels to channel the water away from their home on the west side of the street.
``Am I going to leave before this is over?'' Guido shouted over the wind. ``No way! I drove 225 miles to get here from Falls Church, so there's no way in God's green Earth that I'm leaving.''
The Guidos came prepared to ride out the storm.
``You have to have a steady hand,'' Chris Guido said. ``God put Sandbridge here and God does not make junk. Unless they call for mandatory evacuation, we're going to ride it out.''
Pilkey, the Duke professor and a critic of Sandbridge bulkheads, said battling nature with barriers - massive or miniature - is futile. ``It is virtually unstoppable,'' Pilkey said. ``Nature always bats last.'' ILLUSTRATION: Graphic
JOHN CORBIT/Staff
RECEDING SHORELINE
[For complete graphic, please see microfilm]
Color Photo
MORT FRYMAN/Staff
Frank Guido and his wife, Chris, route water from their home at
Sandfiddler Road and Anglefish Lane in Sandbridge Wednesday.
KEYWORDS: HURRICANE FELIX BEACH EROSION SANDBRIDGE by CNB