THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, February 3, 1996 TAG: 9602030332
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY LARRY W. BROWN AND CINDY CLAYTON, STAFF WRITERS
LENGTH: Long : 188 lines
The bitter winter storm that coated Hampton Roads with a blanket of ice Friday caused hundreds of automobile accidents and left more than 75,000 Virginia Power customers without heat and light Friday.
By late today, the ice, freezing rain and snow should ease, weather forecasters said, but the temperature probably will fall to near 20 this afternoon, and the wind will be gusty, at 15 to 20 mph.
At 6 p.m. Friday, during the height of the outages, 81,000 area customers were without power. By 10 p.m., heat and light had been restored to 5,600 customers, but many people may not see power restored until later today.
Not since the blizzard of 1980 have this many households and businesses been without power, said Pat Gayle, a Virginia Power spokeswoman. It would be impossible to estimate the number of households that may have power restored by this morning, she said late Friday night.
The National Weather Service said the weather will remain cloudy and cold until Tuesday, when the sun is expected to break through and the mercury may reach the 40-degree mark.
``We're looking at potentially one of the worst ice storms . . . in the past 30 years,'' said Hugh Cobb, a meteorologist with the weather service in Wakefield. ``This is going to be one that's going to be remembered.''
From early Friday morning to late Friday night, power lines snapped under the weight of the ice or were severed by trees and branches that collapsed under the buildup of freezing rain.
Virginia Power, with crews working around the clock, said some homes could be without electricity for up to 24 hours.
In Chesapeake, Indian River High School was opened as a shelter for people without power Friday, and City Hall operated on a generator.
While there was much discomfort, no loss of life was reported Friday as a result of the weather.
The number of customers without electrical service changed constantly Friday. As soon as some lines could be repaired, others were knocked out, said Junius Williams Jr., a spokesman for Virginia Power.
But when a tally was taken about 6 p.m., Virginia Beach - the state's largest city - was the hardest hit, with about 20,000 customers affected. Norfolk reported 16,000 outages; Newport News and Hampton 18,000; Chesapeake 15,000; and Suffolk and Portsmouth 12,000.
About 7,000 Virginia Power customers in central Virginia were without power at the same time, while about 15,000 customers in Northeastern North Carolina were waiting for the lights to go on.
Also in question was whether The Virginian-Pilot would be able to deliver papers on time this morning.
The power went out at the newspaper's Greenwich Road printing plant in Virginia Beach about 5:30 p.m. and was not restored until about 9 p.m.
``If we were going to publish tomorrow and our power was not on by 11 p.m., we were making plans to take our pages over to the Daily Press and let them print them for us,'' said Production Director Warren Skipper.
The storm disrupted activity throughout Hampton Roads on Friday:
State police stopped counting highway accidents at 200 about noon Friday. Later estimates were not available Friday night.
Lynnhaven Mall in Virginia Beach closed at 4:30 p.m. Pembroke Mall in Virginia Beach and Military Circle shopping center in Norfolk experienced outages for several hours but power returned by 3 p.m.
Operations were not hampered by local weather at Norfolk International Airport Friday afternoon, according to Wayne Shank, deputy executive director of the airport. However, conditions in Charlotte and Raleigh, N.C., and Washington and New York caused the disruption of scheduled flights.
Norfolk's four acute care hospitals - Sentara Norfolk General, Sentara Leigh, DePaul Medical Center and Children's Hospital of The King's Daughters - had to switch to backup power for a time Friday afternoon. So did Chesapeake General Hospital.
Elsewhere, the storm dropped 10 to 15 inches of snow in southwestern Virginia, and two to eight more inches of snow and ice were forecast for that area overnight Friday.
From Richmond to Lynchburg and north to Fredericksburg, the overnight forecast called for another 6 to 14 inches of snow. Northern Virginia was expected to get 4 to 8 more inches.
Crews from the Virginia Department of Transportation were out early Friday as the storm moved into Hampton Roads. And VDOT kept its crews working today.
``We're expecting (temperatures) to be below freezing, meaning anything that is wet. . . is likely to freeze,'' VDOT spokesman Bill Cannell said Friday afternoon. ``We're expecting roadways to stay frozen tomorrow.''
Cannell said activity in the department has been extremely heavy because employees must clear roadways of ice as well as fallen power lines and branches.
``We're being pulled in two different directions,'' Cannell said.
As if the slick roads were not bad enough, the power outages affected many traffic signals and businesses in South Hampton Roads and on the Peninsula.
Virginia Beach police called in supplemental dispatchers to handle the surge of telephone reports pouring into the city's communications center.
Detectives and fire inspectors were sent to check out felled power lines because patrol officers and firefighters were busy on other weather-related calls.
On Carolina Avenue in the Shadowlawn section of Virginia Beach, a heavy coating of ice toppled a tree in Rich Kinsey's front yard. His fiance, Karen Putnam, heard the commotion.
``It made a lot of noise and shook the house,'' said Putnam. ``I didn't know what was going on.''
The tree snapped power lines, plunging the couple and their neighbors into darkness. And without electricity to power furnaces, Shadowlawn homes quickly chilled.
Theirs was a familiar scene in Hampton Roads.
Norfolk firefighters were busy many places where power lines were down. Emergency officials in Norfolk said Friday afternoon that fire trucks had been dispatched to about 46 locations were lines were down.
``It's like a war zone out there,'' said Raymond Samuels of the 7700 block of Leafwood Drive in Norfolk. ``There are about 15 to 20 big limbs all over my yard.''
In Portsmouth the Churchland area was most heavily hit early as ice buildup on limbs damaged many of the area's pine trees.
``They were just snapping like pencils,'' said L. Pettis Patton, acting city manager in Portsmouth. ``There were hundreds of trees and thousands of limbs. Many of them sounded like shotguns going off.''
By late Friday afternoon, Patton said, the ice damage had spread throughout the city, keeping Virginia Power and TCI cable TV crews busy in at least a half-dozen neighborhoods, including Westhaven and Shea Terrace. Fallen limbs on power lines caused a house fire in Cradock and numerous power outages, she said.
Paul Forehand, administrative coordinator for Portsmouth, said his office had fielded approximately 70 telephone calls reporting fallen limbs by late Friday afternoon. Forehand said city officials were predicting the reports would increase throughout the weekend.
In Windsor, the lines of the Community Electric Cooperative were covered with ice, causing about 2,000 consumers to lose service. Late Friday, the co-op was still working to restore power. Community Electric serves about 8,000 consumers in rural parts of Suffolk, Isle of Wight, Southampton, Sussex and Surry counties.
The National Weather Service said one-third of Suffolk's residents were without power Friday afternoon.
Among the hospitals that lost power, Sentara Leigh was out the longest. The Norfolk hospital switched to backup generators about 11:15 a.m. and was still using the backup at 4:30 p.m.
Sentara Norfolk General Hospital, Children's Hospital of The King's Daughters, DePaul Medical Center and Chesapeake General used emergency generators between 1 p.m. and 3 p.m., for periods ranging from 30 minutes to two hours.
All local hospitals have several layers of backup power that switch on automatically in emergencies. People in patient-care areas might have noticed a brief flickering of the lights as the power switched over. Lights dimmed in some hallways and non-clinical offices.
At Children's Hospital, some non-essential elevators were turned off and some outbuildings not related to patient care lost power.
In Portsmouth, Maryview Medical Center kept regular power in its main building, although an office building on the grounds switched to a generator.
No difficulties were reported at Sentara Bayside in Virginia Beach, Portsmouth General, Virginia Beach General, or Obici in Suffolk.
MEMO: Staff writers Jon Frank, Debra Gordon, Marie Joyce, Mike Mather,
Stephanie Stoughton and Terri Williams as well as The Associated Press
contributed to this report.
ILLUSTRATION: [Color Photos]
BILL TIERNAN
The Virginian-Pilot
RESTORING POWER: Shawn Odendhal of Virginia Power works to repair a
damaged power line on Sweet Briar Avenue in the Lakewood Section of
Norfolk Friday afternoon.
BILL TIERNAN
The Virginian-Pilot
LIMB BURNS: A limb crossing two power lines along Lakewood Drive in
Norfolk catches fire Friday. Virginia Power crews shut off power,
allowing tree trimmers to free the limb.
MARTIN SMITH-RODDEN
The Virginian-Pilot
CREEPING CARS: Automobiles inch into the eastbound tube of the
Downtown Tunnel in Portsmouth during the ice storm that held South
Hampton Roads in its icy snare Friday.
STORM CLOSINGS
PORTSMOUTH
Portsmouth Public Library and branches will be closed today.
NORFOLK
The mayor's first-quarter workshop ``Shaping's Norfolk's Budget''
has been rescheduled for Feb. 17 from 9 a.m. to noon at Lafayette
Winona Middle School.
Nauticus will be closed. The 10:30 a.m. showing of ``The Indian
in the Cupboard'' is rescheduled for noon Sunday.
There will be no youth basketball today at Norfolk recreation
centers.
At Old Dominion University, all Saturday classes and the National
Teachers Exam are canceled. Admission open house.
KEYWORDS: WINTER STORM ICE STORM by CNB