THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, August 20, 1995 TAG: 9508200045
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B3 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
SOURCE: By MASON PETERS, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: BUXTON LENGTH: Medium: 58 lines
Past the windy windows of Wallace H. Demaurice's National Weather Service office at Cape Hatteras howl the most powerful hurricanes in the world.
``Felix gave us a chance to show that we're still able to help out around here,'' said the forecaster who probably has played tag with more hurricanes than has anyone else in the National Weather Service.
``There are only three of us manning the station now, but we went on 24-hour, round-the-clock duty as soon as Felix became a threat.
For nearly 30 years, Demaurice has been in charge of the U.S. weather station on Hatteras Island.
He and a much larger crew of fellow forecasters often have been hit first by the great summer storms that sweep up the coast.
``Each hurricane is different and for a meteorologist they present beautiful challenges,'' said Demaurice. ``We'll be studying Felix for years, figuring out why it tracked the way it did.''
In the past, the hurricanes that swung punches at the exposed nose of Cape Hatteras were first detected by Demaurice and his old World War II weather radar at Buxton. At one point, Buxton technicians were keeping the obsolete WSR-57 radar operational with Russian vacuum tubes ``and every electronic Band-Aid we could get our hands on, including chewing gum,'' said Demaurice.
In February most of Demaurice's crew and a lot of the storm-sampling equipment at Cape Hatteras were transferred to a new National Weather Service station at Newport, N.C., just west of Morehead City.
With a state-of-the-art WSR-88-D Doppler radar, the Newport installation now tracks the storms that used to leave early-warning calling cards for Demaurice on the old Buxton radar.
``When we started retrenching, the National Weather Service agreed to keep the Cape Hatteras office open so we'd be able to provide Dare County officials with storm knowledge on the spot,'' said Demaurice. Now he has only Phil Moore and James Ireland, two Weather Service veterans, to stand watches with him at Buxton.
``When Felix headed our way we had most of our old communication equipment up and running, including ham radio gear, and we were able to keep Dare County emergency management officials provided with the accurate information they needed,'' he said.
If spiral stripes were painted around the popular Demaurice, he would be only slightly less well-known on Hatteras Island than the famed lighthouse.
When the downsizing of the Buxton weather station was ordered, Dare County community leaders put pressure on legislators to keep Buxton and Demaurice in business after the new facility opened.
``The way it looks now, the National Weather Service will probably keep Buxton operating at least through 1999, so we'll be able to be of service a little while longer,'' Demaurice said Friday.
By then he'll be eligible for retirement. ``No predictions about that,'' Demaurice quipped. by CNB