THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, August 18, 1995 TAG: 9508180513
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B5 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY KAREN WEINTRAUB, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 67 lines
From the underside of a Sandbridge house, the power of the hurricane that didn't happen felt awesome.
Waves slammed into and over bulkheads. The ground quaked. The spray that jumped the rippled sheets of metal also flooded streets and turned several back yards into saltwater swimming pools.
It was not a good day to be a homeowner in Sandbridge.
But it was not nearly as bad as many had feared.
As of Thursday evening, there were no reports of houses lost or seriously undermined along this fragile coastline that is washing slowly back into the sea. In Norfolk's vulnerable Willoughby Spit, sand appeared to be accumulating, rather than eroding. And there were no significant damage reports from the mouth of the Chesapeake to the lower tip of Cape Hatteras.
At least not so far.
``All in all we're very lucky, but it's not over with yet,'' Virginia Beach City Manager James K. Spore said Thursday evening. His biggest concern now is that the storm will stay just offshore for another few days, continually hurling higher-than-normal waves at the sensitive coast.
``That multiple, repeated high-tide action is really bad,'' Spore said. ``With a more typical hurricane, you'd have one series of tides like that. If we have three or four in a row, the impact's much worse.''
For the moment, though, it's hard to tell what's really happening as waves as high as 15 feet crash repeatedly against the shore.
In Virginia Beach, Spore said, ``My observation is it's not as bad as we would have expected, but we're trying to have Public Works do a check on that because there's a lot of speculation based on very little facts right now.''
No damage has been reported in Norfolk, said Sherman Edmondson, an assistant planning director who is coordinating damage reports.
In the upper section of Willoughby near the Hampton Roads Bridge Tunnel, the storm may have improved the beach, said residents walking along the sand Thursday.
The wind off the water seemed to have dumped sand behind the rocks and built up the beach.
Ed Orenduff, Virginia Power director of operations for Hampton Roads, said he has heard of no big problems, but has five crews doing preventive maintenance around the clock at the Oceanfront.
Winds have been blowing salt water into the electrical insulators on every telephone pole, he said. To avoid shorting, workers have been washing out the insulators.
``As long as the wind stays out of the north without any rain, that will continue to be a problem,'' said Orenduff. He said some beachfront residents will lose power for short periods as maintenance continues.
The city reopened Sandbridge Road to the public after 2 p.m.
Even though the storm had weakened and moved farther out to sea, no one was seen removing plywood sheeting or even moving back into the area in large numbers. For most of the day, Sandbridge was inhabited by only a fraction of the crowd normal for mid-August.
A National Geographic photographer was shooting roll after roll of the crashing waves. As a friend braced her against the winds, the photographer complained about the bright sunlight that was ruining her hurricane pictures. MEMO: The Associated Press and staff writers Tom Holden, Alex Marshall and
Kerry Dougherty contributed to this report.
KEYWORDS: BEACH EROSION SANDBRIDGE HURRICANE FELIX by CNB