THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, July 11, 1996 TAG: 9607110392
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY STEVE STONE, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: 117 lines
From Miami to Virginia Beach, millions of coastal residents and the officials charged with their protection wondered and worried Wednesday: Where is Bertha going?
And when will it get there?
At 11 p.m., the answers appeared to be the Outer Banks and Friday as Bertha - packing sustained winds of 100 mph - made a long-forecast turn toward the north.
Hurricane warnings were up along the North Carolina coast. The Virginia coast up to Chincoteague - including Hampton Roads and the southern Chesapeake Bay - was placed under a hurricane watch.
A warning means hurricane conditions are likely within 24 hours; a watch, within 36 hours.
The National Hurricane Center predicted that Bertha would come ashore near Wilmington, N.C., early Friday and then move north.
That would put the eye of the storm just west of the Albemarle and Pamlico sounds by Friday afternoon, over Norfolk and the Eastern Shore a few hours later and finally back into the Atlantic.
``Indeed, it looks like it will go into North Carolina'' near Wilmington ``in the next 24 to 36 hours,'' said Bob Sheets, former director of the National Hurricane Center.
However, the margin for error on such 48-hour forecasts is as much as 100 miles in either direction. And for hurricanes, that's the difference between devastation and showers.
Bertha did weaken slightly late Wednesday, with winds down to 100 mph from a peak of 115 mph a day earlier. But it remained a dangerous - and deadly - storm.
Having already claimed four lives in Puerto Rico, Bertha took its first life on the mainland Wednesday when a 28-year-old swimmer drowned in riptides at Jacksonville Beach, Fla.
About 500,000 central Florida residents and travelers were evacuated from the coast Wednesday in fear that Bertha might come ashore. It was the first mandatory evacuation of the area since Hurricane David in 1979.
NASA wheeled the space shuttle Atlantis off its launch pad to the shelter of a hangar, and President Clinton canceled a flight to Florida. Olympic officials in Georgia started moving competition yachts inland.
In Virginia Beach, officials imposed swimming restrictions on the Oceanfront as officials kept a close watch on the storm.
``I look at the forecast and I hope that they are in error,'' said Jim Talbot, deputy coordinator of emergency services for Norfolk. ``But, as it gets closer to the mid-Atlantic coast, those errors seem to decrease somewhat.''
Not since Hurricane Hugo followed a similar path in 1989 - coming ashore just north of Charleston, S.C. - was so much of the East Coast placed on alert under such uncertainty about where a storm will hit. Bertha's hurricane-force winds extended less than 150 miles from the storm's center, but 700 miles of coast was alerted to prepare.
And, as happened with Hugo, the problem for forecasters has been that computer models and the data fed into them called for one thing while the storm did another.
``We've been talking now for two days about this hurricane taking a turn toward the north,'' said John Hope, senior meteorologist at The Weather Channel in Atlanta.
Had it turned sooner, Bertha might have posed no threat to the U.S. mainland, Hope said Wednesday. Instead, it continued to speed northwest. And each passing hour brought its swirling bands of wind and rain closer to the coast.
With Bertha's outermost rainbands sweeping over Florida on Wednesday, the Hurricane Center raised its hurricane warnings across four states.
Absent a favorable change in course or strength, officials in Hampton Roads may begin recommending actions today to move people out of harm's way.
``We'll go to full activation of Emergency Operations Center and begin working in unison with the surrounding cities and jurisdictions and make decisions on a regional basis rather than city by city,'' Talbot said.
He likened Bertha to a 1933 hurricane - the last major storm to hit the area.
``If it holds to the projected forecast, we could be looking at a storm very close to '33's intensity,'' Talbot said. ``Its sustained winds were at 96 mph.''
While Bertha is on a slightly different course, ``this hurricane appears to be larger,'' and thus might affect the area longer, Talbot said. ``It could put us through several hours - potentially 10 hours - of hurricane force winds and possibly two high-tide cycles. That is of big concern.''
Evacuations along the North Carolina coast - limited to Hatteras and Ocracoke islands on the Outer Banks Wednesday - also might be expanded.
Although not as powerful, Bertha is twice as large as Hurricane Andrew, which wrecked South Florida in 1991 - and it has a swath of tropical storm force winds almost 500 miles wide, Hopkins said.
``The strongest winds and surf are on the east side (of the storm), so the sounds would get hit pretty hard,'' if Bertha follows the forecast course, Hopkins said.
``We would expect the usual damage, erosion, strong winds, heavy rains and whatnot'' with a Category 2 storm, he said.
As the storm approaches the Chesapeake Bay, it would initially tend to pull water south, with winds coming in from the northeast. ``The storm surge could be considerable'' along north-facing beaches and along the coast, Hopkins said.
At 11 p.m., the center of Bertha was about 625 miles south of Virginia Beach, moving north northwest at 14 mph. A gradual turn toward the north was expected overnight and today.
``The current forecast track of Bertha takes the storm over southeastern North Carolina by early Friday morning with tropical storm force winds possibly overspreading northeastern North Carolina as early as midnight'' tonight, said meteorologist Wayne Albright of the National Weather Service office in Wakefield.
Beach erosion and coastal flooding are possible late tonight or early Friday as Bertha approaches, if there is no change in its track. High tides will occur today at Currituck Beach, N.C., at 5 a.m. and 5:32 p.m. and Friday at 5:52 a.m. At Virginia Beach, the high tides will occur today at 5:20 a.m. and 5:52 p.m. and Friday at 6:12 a.m. ILLUSTRATION: Color map
Possible path of Hurricane Bertha
ASSOCIATED PRESS photo
Long Beach, N.C., is 35 miles south of Wilmington, where Bertha is
forecast to hit land early Friday.
KEYWORDS: HURRICANE BERTHA by CNB