THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, August 20, 1995 TAG: 9508180147
SECTION: VIRGINIA BEACH BEACON PAGE: 20 EDITION: FINAL
LENGTH: Long : 141 lines
Wednesday, Aug. 16
11 a.m. - Beacon office.
Amid the preparations for storm coverage, a fax marked Public Service Announcement arrives. It is from the staff of the Judeo-Christian Outreach Center, who have a request of all houses and businesses using plywood for hurricane protection.
``Please consider donating the plywood to us after the storm is over to help with construction of a new bathroom facility in our family shelter. Call the shelter at 491-2846 to request pickup,'' the message reads. Added, almost as an afterthought, are the three words, ``after the storm.''
- Jo-Ann Clegg
1:10 p.m. - Holiday Inn at 26th Street on the Oceanfront.
Maurice Frye of Glendale, Md., is lugging suitcases to his station wagon in the hotel parking lot. He is leaving Virginia Beach reluctantly, he says, after just one day in a hotel room he had booked until next Saturday.
``This is nothing,'' he says as Hurricane Felix's wind begins to rise, whipping the streetfront plantings and the banners on the stubstreet park nearby. ``My wife panicked. She's never been through a hurricane before. I'd like to stay.
``I'm originally from Front Royal and I've been through eight of these,'' he says, stuffing suitcases into the back of his vehicle. ``My first one was Hazel, when I was 6.''
Others are also checking out of the hotel as the huge storm approaches the coast. Says the front desk clerk, there are plenty of rooms available.
- Bill Reed
1:30 p.m. - Boardwalk at 26th Street.
Ben Rosencrants and fellow lifeguards have been told by their boss, R.L. Kent Hinnant, captain of the Virginia Beach Lifesaving Service, to keep everybody off the beach proper, where the booming surf menaces the bulkhead and the Boardwalk resting atop it.
Today the ban includes surfers, as well as beach strollers, bathers and daredevils who want to challenge the ocean's raw power. Rosencrants' vigil has not been without incident.
``I had a few people go down to the water down there,'' he says. ``And I had to go down and get 'em out.''
Hinnant says the beach ban was decided by the city's emergency management team and will remain in place until the surf calms considerably.
``We've decided to keep people off the beach,'' he says. ``It's going to be a day-to-day call based on judgment and experience.
`` . . . Nobody is allowed on the beach - even surfers.''
A National Guard unit and members of the State Police are helping city officials patrol the Oceanfront, says Hinnant. It's all part of precautionary efforts taken by the city administration in the wake of Gov. Allen's declaration of a state of emergency in Virginia.
- Bill Reed
1:30 p.m. - 3700 block of Jefferson Boulevard in Ocean Park.
Nell Fisher helps her fiance, Wirt Wills, cut 1/2-inch sheets of plywood on a sawhorse in the carport of her beach cottage.
Fisher, Wills and Wills' daughter, Kim, left Chesterfield County early this morning and arrived in Ocean Park at 9:30.
Once the sheets are cut, Wirt and Fisher carry them to the second floor and nail them across living room windows.
Fisher's mother had a cottage on the same lot during the Ash Wednesday storm in March 1962.
``The water came in and undermined it and it collapsed,'' Kim Fisher says. ``It was cinder block on concrete foundation.''
The storm also claimed the house next door.
Nell Fisher's mother rebuilt the beach cottage in 1978 and started using it in 1979.
It now rests on wooden pilings.
``Water is already over the property line,'' says Kim Fisher. ``The wind has really picked up since we got here.'' The three plan to go back to Chesterfield County once the house is secure.
- Gary Edwards
1:40 p.m. - Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel entrance.
Rita Rock, a spokeswoman for the tunnel, says there is ``no anticipation of closing the tunnel at this time.''
No wind restrictions are in place yet for trailers, campers or anyone else who wants to venture across the 17 1/2-mile bridge-tunnel.
As for the day's traffic flow, Rock isn't sure.
``They boarded my windows up and I can't see out,'' says Rock, who is stationed in the administration building on the Eastern Shore side of the tunnel. ``I have nine-by-nine windows on the east side of the building, and they boarded them up this morning. Normally, I can see to tell you how traffic's doing.''
- Lori A. Denney
2 p.m. - Jr. Market on Lookout Road at Chick's Beach.
Betty Sellers is waiting to hear the horn before she closes up the small convenience store and heads home to Norfolk.
``I'm waiting for the cops to come through with their bull horns for mandatory evacuation,'' says Sellers. ``When that happens, I'm out of here!''
Sellers has heard the stories of damage caused by prior storms at the bayfront beach.
She recounts a story about a storm six years ago that she says put the small store and an apartment building across the street under water.
``People are certainly stocking up and taking it serious,'' says Sellers, who adds that she sold one woman $56 worth of groceries just minutes before.
- Lori A. Denney
2:06 p.m. - 4900 block of Lauderdale Avenue in Chick's Beach.
Libby Carrell and her boyfriend, Henry Smith, are preparing for Hurricane Felix. They have stocked up on water, they bought a propane cooker and Henry has tied the city garbage can to a huge water oak in the neighbor's back yard, along with his fishing boat.
``People say we're overreacting, but that's better than not reacting at all,'' Carrell says. ``I remember Ash Wednesday.''
Carrell grew up in neighboring Baylake Pines, a few blocks inland from her current house. The house was in Princess Anne County at the time and had well water run by a generator.
``We didn't suffer any damage to the house, but we didn't have electricity for four days. When we found out Frankie's (a restaurant on Lookout Road) had electricity, we went up there and got water.
``Water was up to the dunes this morning, and now it's high tide,'' Carrell says as she pauses to listen to a Weather Channel update.
Felix is now stalled 150 miles east-southeast of Cape Hatteras.
``Well, I guess we're ready,'' she says. ``Some of the year-round residents across the street don't know anything about Ash Wednesday.''
- Gary Edwards
2 p.m. - 3200 Sandfiddler Road in Sandbridge.
There is the smell of propane in the air. Even as the winds kick up and the surf spray fills the air with salty water, the pungent odor of propane is thick. It seems to be coming from the ocean and a group of people decide to investigate.
They walk over the withered dune line and peer into the foamy surf that is pounding at the foundation of a threatened house. At first they see nothing. Then they hear a hissing sound.
There, in the surf, a 150-gallon tank has broken free and is rolling in the surf. As the gas escapes into the water, it boils.
Ten minutes later a tanker from the Sandbridge Fire Station arrives to investigate.
- Tom Holden
KEYWORDS: HURRICANE FELIX by CNB