THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, August 20, 1995 TAG: 9508180156
SECTION: VIRGINIA BEACH BEACON PAGE: 26 EDITION: FINAL
LENGTH: Long : 297 lines
2:05 p.m. - 2500 Sandfiddler Road in Sandbridge.
A condemned beach house teeters on the brink of collapse, the victim of previous storms. Hurricane Felix is churning off the coast and the roiling surf is pounding the house, bringing out curious people who wonder if it will fall into the sea.
``I've never seen something like this,'' says Linda Demeo, of Rocky Point, Long Island. Just then a huge wave thumps into a nearby bulkhead. Sea spray shoots into the air.
``We got to Virginia Beach on Saturday and we'll stay until Saturday - if the storm doesn't take us.''
Demeo is staying with 10 family members in a cottage set back from the ocean. And like untold thousands of locals, Demeo and her clan are ready with the food and drinks.
``We got a lasagna in the oven and pina coladas ready,'' she says, just as another wave whomps into the seawall. ``I think it's time to go and get some.''
- Tom Holden
2:15 p.m. - 3300 Sandfiddler Road in Sandbridge.
George Thomas is a research scientist for the Virginia Institute of Marine Science. For months he has been measuring erosion at various points along the coast. He has just stopped by to make observations.
A rain squall has kicked up and Thomas is soaking wet as he looks into his journal.
``In December, there was 11 feet of bulkhead exposed to the surf and now it's 17 feet,'' Thomas says, as an enormous wave strikes the imperiled metal wall. ``That's six feet in just eight months.''
Thomas' studies have taken him from Willoughby Spit in Norfolk to many points south and like many scientists he avoids sounding too alarmist about conditions. Still, under the leaden skies and with the storm more than 100 miles away, Thomas cannot help but show some anxiety.
``This is going to be a one-two punch to Sandbridge,'' he says. ``This is the first punch. The tide is now falling, but if the storm lands, then the surf will keep building to the point where there might not be a low tide.''
- Tom Holden
2:20 p.m. - Seaview Avenue at Chick's Beach.
Jeff Smith and his buddy Billy Cotten are shoving sand from the roadway and putting it into burlap bags.
``Well, my neighbor's worried about her garage flooding and she wanted some sandbags to help keep the water away,'' says Smith, who owns his own landscaping and lawn service company. ``She's helped us out before by baby-sitting and stuff so we figured we'd go get her some sand.''
Smith and Cotten drove in from Norfolk to bag the sand. After about 20 minutes of shoveling, the two men load up eight half-filled bags and drive off in their pickup, headed back to Norfolk.
- Lori A. Denney
2:30 p.m. - Cox High School.
Debra Lynn has staked out a portion of the gymnasium stage. She is one of 47 people who have taken shelter here since late morning. Most have fled their oceanfront homes.
Lynn says she left her top-floor bayside condo early hoping to get a ``choice spot,'' but she also wanted the ``experience of seeing how people huddle together as a species'' in an emergency.
It's not Lynn's first hurricane. In 1991, Hurricane Bob did serious damage to her Narragansett, R.I., bed and breakfast. ``It put a boulder through the seaside door and 20-foot waves'' crashed over the dwelling.
``So why get here early?'' she asks rhetorically. ``Why not.''
- Nancy Lewis
2:45 p.m. - A Bayfront home at Chick's Beach.
Drill in hand, Roger Guldenpfennig stands on the deck of his in-laws' home surveying his recent handiwork with plywood.
The beach house has been home to Guldenpfennig's in-laws for 26 years and he's not taking any chances. He's already boarded up the huge windows that face the ocean; he's nailed down the doors at the bottom so that the air can't swirl in and pry them open and earlier in the year, he took the time to lay more than a dozen old Christmas trees side by side on the high dune that leads up to the family's deck.
``We'll probably just get water damage,'' Guldenpfennig surmises. ``Everyone's in a panic, though, about their windshields.''
Guldenpfennig and the family own a windshield repair company. They've been getting calls all morning requesting repairs on cracked and chipped windshields.
``I just tell them that it's better to leave the old one in until this passes,'' he says. ``That way they don't have to pay for two new windshields.''
- Lori A. Denney
2:45 p.m. - Cox High School.
``Ten days old and already in a hurricane,'' says Sandra Trank, gesturing to her infant son sleeping in a car seat. She and her toddler were waiting for husband Robert to register the family at Cox.
Robert Trank is in the Army, stationed at Fort Story. The couple was given the order to move to bunkers on post or take up shelter off post.
Sandra Trank says Felix is the first hurricane she's experienced. ``In Alabama, we just suffer the tornadoes,'' she says.
- Nancy Lewis
3:30 p.m. - Triangle Trailer Park.
Terry McGovern is ready to move her family into Great Neck Middle School. She lives in a mobile home with her child and husband. It's only nine blocks from the ocean, and McGovern doesn't feel safe.
``Those trailers are so old,'' she says. ``The rent's cheap, but I can't get renter's insurance.''
McGovern says that she'll ``wait and see what happens'' to her trailer. ``If it's destroyed, we'll probably go back to New York,'' she says.
- Nancy Lewis
3:30 p.m. - Sandbridge.
John Bolen is a 25-year-old Ohio native who moved to Virginia with his wife, Benita, 26, and found a quaint little store to open in Sandbridge. It's called Beach N' Devors and it sells mostly beach wares - sun tan lotion, plastic beach toys. From his vantage point, Bolen has seen the slow but persistent exodus that has greatly reduced the population of this resort playground.
``Business has been great but I'm expecting it to die out pretty soon,'' Bolen says. Outside the store is a small gas station and it's been the focus of his attention for two days.
``We sold more gasoline on Tuesday than we did on the Fourth of July and the day before the Fourth put together - 5,000 gallons,'' he says.
Many of the customers have been from Ohio and Pennsylvania, he says. They're understandably worried about Felix and ask Bolen for advice on where to go. It makes him a little anxious to get involved in the decisions of people he does not know.
``The people make me nervous,'' he admits. ``They have questions about the best evacuation routes. Should they leave? Should they stay? These are questions that are not easy for me to answer.''
Bolen would like to close and get away from the surf but he stays open out of a sense of civic duty.
``I'm here as a public service,'' says Bolen, a financial analyst at Fleet Combat Training Center at Dam Neck. ``I want to make sure that people have enough gas to go.''
- Tom Holden
3:30 p.m. - Binswanger Glass Co. on First Colonial Road.
Patty Lawrence has a phone in each hand as the calls come in from Felix-fearful homeowners.
``Most of the people want to board their windows,'' she says. ``We have several trucks out now boarding up houses and businesses.''
Any calls for car windows?
``Yes,'' says Lawrence. ``We tell them to put it in the garage and leave it until the hurricane's over.''
In Norfolk, Bob Coburn is equally busy.
He says the worse thing a homeowner can do is nothing.
``Taping helps. The best thing to do - a permanent, one-time solution - is the safety and security film. It doesn't have to be put up and taken down.''
Coburn notes one drawback: procrastination.
``It takes the film a week to dry and seal. You can't order the day you need it.''
- Gary Edwards
4:15 p.m. - Corporate Landing Elementary School.
The American Red Cross-designated shelter is operating with a full staff but only about a dozen guests. Eligibility worker Judy Moore and shelter manager Al Duseault, both with Social Services, say they're expecting at least 500 people to seek refuge. Corporate Landing is the closest shelter for Sandbridge and Oceanfront residents and has been designated for the homeless.
``We're told to be prepared,'' says Duseault, walkie-talkie in hand. ``If we get too many we're going to refer them to Strawbridge.''
In the cafeteria, a few families have set up sleeping bags against the walls and are settling in for the long night ahead. Bill Merron and his sons Billy, Sean and Chris are quietly playing Monopoly on one of the long tables. The Merrons (including wife Fran) left their Pine Meadows home earlier.
``Why wait till the last minute?'' asks Merron, a rigger for Public Works at the Norfolk Naval Base. ``This building is definitely safer than my house. We have checkers, chess, snacks - we're set.''
- Pam Starr
4:25 p.m. - Atlantic Avenue.
On the fifth day of their vacation from Maple Shade, N.J., Wanda South and her brother, David Crouch, fight the strong winds to shop-hop along the strip.
``At least we got shirts that say `We survived the hurricane','' says an optimistic South, before heading into a souvenir store to seek candles.
The pair, in town for a family reunion, plan to keep their hotel reservations through Saturday, even though their sister, who lives in Larkspur, has offered them inland shelter.
``I don't want to leave all this excitement,'' says South, a Beach native on her first ``vacation'' to the resort city. ``We're just gonna wait and see if anything happens.''
They're stocked up on film and batteries, and South says if the water makes it up to the Boardwalk, she and Crouch will follow through with arrangements to move from the first to the second floor of the 21st Street Holiday Inn.
``I will probably be a little scared,'' she says, ``but that just adds to the excitement!''
- Holly Wester
4:35 p.m. - 23rd Street on the oceanfront.
From behind the Boardwalk's silver bars, self-proclaimed amateur hurricane tracker George Grant delivers an animated weather forecast to his video camera-toting friend, Mike Hill.
``We're down here practicing,'' jokes Grant, a communications major gearing up for his first year of graduate school at Norfolk State University.
While his dreadlocks dance in the gust, Grant, a Portsmouth resident, recalls his times with Gloria at the Oceanfront in 1985. He says he wouldn't miss Felix for the world.
``I enjoy the power of nature,'' he says, turning to the wild seas. ``Seeing these waves crash here. . . it's majestic.''
Monique Belton, Grant's cousin and schoolmate, also of Portsmouth, agrees. ``It's a relaxing place to be right now,'' she says, wrapping a white towel around her head. ``With the wind. . . it's real mellow.''
But cameraman Hill, a resident of Norfolk, isn't ashamed to broadcast his fears. ``I'm getting scared,'' he says. ``This storm ain't nothing to play with. You can't play with power.''
- Holly Wester
5 p.m. - Triangle Trailer Park on Virginia Beach Boulevard.
Tracy Johnson and Lauran Blanto sit on the front steps of Johnson's trailer. Blanton has brought her three children to Johnson's trailer because it is safer, she says.
Though neither expects their trailers to ``hold together,'' they will stay in Johnson's trailer unless told by officials to evacuate. They worry that the few belongings they have will be lost otherwise.
``I don't have much, but I've got to try to keep it,'' says Johnson. ``Anyway, it's just blowing a little.''
``These are the only homes we've got,'' says Blanton. ``We've got to protect what we have.''
``Besides,'' says Johnson, ``they said on the television to be sure to take emergency cash. I don't have any cash,'' she laughs.
- Nancy Lewis
6:30 p.m. - Atlantic Avenue.
Dobbs Tree Service is getting a jump on the storm. The company's equipment is sitting at the North End waiting for Felix to do its damage. Like tanks ready for battle, three work trucks with mulching machines attached are lined up in a large parking lot belonging to the First Presbyterian Church. Passing motorists on their way home from work can't miss seeing the trucks, not to mention the tree service's logo and phone number on each truck's door.
- Mary Reid Barrow
7:10 p.m. - Corporate Landing Elementary School.
The expected influx of people has not materialized. Only 42 have sought shelter here, much to the surprise of shelter manager Al Duseault and his staff. He has just learned that Strawbridge and Landstown are closing their shelters for the night and those people will be coming to Corporate Landing.
``It's not supposed to hit until later tomorrow,'' says Duseault. ``We'll probably get the brunt of it Friday.''
- Pam Starr
7:25 p.m. - Ocean Eddie's on the 15th Street Pier.
Two dozen or so beer-guzzling locals and tourists hang outside the dimly lit establishment to watch the kicking ocean from the pier and debate about what, if anything, Felix is going to do.
Jason Couse, a 25-year-old from Ventura, Calif., is one observer who isn't used to the scene. ``We don't have weather like this out there,'' he says. ``All it does is shake.''
- Holly Wester
8 p.m. - Chicho's on Atlantic Avenue.
A $50 tab grows as locals George and Debbie Burdett share $1 bottles of Michelob Dry with their nephew, Keith Berenguer of Norfolk, during the busy Oceanfront bar's ``Lifeguard Night.''
They have just finished polishing off what they could of a fresh mushroom pizza, and plan to take the rest home to use as hurricane munchies. Other plans include hanging until the joint closes down.
``The hurricane is a good reason to meet with friends and party a little bit,'' Berenguer says, as he fidgets with a Marlboro Light. ``Well, it's just one more reason to party!''
- Holly Wester
8:30 p.m. - Xeniks on Atlantic Avenue.
Fifty-cent Natural Light drafts are more than a cheap find for tonight's bar patrons.
Owner Xen Kopassis remembers when Hurricane Emily hit in August 1993. ``It was a Tuesday night,'' he says, ``and that was our 25-cent draft night.''
Although the beer price has gone up a quarter, Kopassis is still a nostalgic kind of guy. He says, ``Whether the hurricane comes or not, I'm starting a tradition.''
- Holly Wester
10:55 p.m. - H20 on Atlantic Avenue.
A pair of boat buddies sit up at the bar, sip tall drinks and exchange fishing stories with bartender Pat Foster.
Don Soter of Fairfax Station waits for high tide, so he can tend to his Rudee Inlet-parked boat, ``Bill Buster.'' In the meantime, he brags about the accomplishment of his pal, Steve Richardson.
``He broke the record,'' a proud Soter says about Richardson's Monday catch of 24 white marlin and three blue marlin. ``That's the most fun he's had with his clothes on!''
- Holly Wester ILLUSTRATION: Staff photo by CHARLIE MEADS
ABOVE: Wirt Wills, left, and Nell Fisher, both of Chesterfield
County, Va., board up windows of Fisher's house in the 3700 block of
Jefferson Blvd. in the Ocean Park section of the city. Fisher's
mother lost a house at the same site during the 1962 Ash Wednesday
storm.
Staff photo by MORT FRYMAN
LEFT: Chris Castaldo of Long Island, N.Y., quickly exits the ocean
after videotaping the effects of the storm in Sandbridge.
KEYWORDS: HURRICANE FELIX by CNB