THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, July 13, 1996 TAG: 9607130184
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY ELIZABETH THIEL AND LANE DEGREGORY, STAFF WRITERS
LENGTH: 156 lines
Howling winds from Hurricane Bertha swept across the Outer Banks just before a sunset that nobody saw Friday.
Gusts of more than 60 mph announced the storm's arrival with a thunderous roar.
After raking Ocracoke and Hatteras islands, winds shook residents of Nags Head at 6:47 p.m. with an explosive blast when it slammed against trees, houses and businesses.
The few stragglers who ventured out in Hatteras were lifted off their feet by the winds, which sent a foot of ocean waters cascading across N.C. 12 north of the fishing village.
Everything was in motion - everything except humans. Trees genuflected. Sailboat masts swayed like metronomes. Flapping flags gave evidence of the strength of the wind.
Instantly, soaked clothes slapped bodies like luffing sails. Salt skimmed off testy seas and flavored every mouthful of air gasped out of the maelstrom.
There was no escaping the constant tenor of the wind that during the night shifted to a shrill whistle.
The storm's power was everywhere.
An unidentified woman died when her car was blown into the path of another in Kitty Hawk.
An electric transformer failed about 7 p.m. in Duck, leaving the residents who didn't evacuate the north beach town without lights. Power also went out on Ocracoke and in parts of Elizabeth City and Currituck and Camden counties.
And on Hatteras Island, 29-year-old repairman Kerry C. Hooper fixed a Cape Hatteras Electric Co-op line about 7 p.m. - then called it quits as he was hammered by wind-driven rain that stung his skin like BB pellets.
``We're hanging it up. It's getting too dangerous,'' Hooper said from a cherry picker alongside 30-foot-high power lines. He had restored electricity to about 20 homes. ``There's no sense in getting someone killed. All the power's just going to go out again anyway.''
The slashing wind and rain that fell up, down and sideways turned out the sun and brought darkness two hours early.
Southeastern North Carolina, where Bertha made landfall, was among the areas hardest hit.
At Wrightsville Beach near Wilmington, a prime casualty was Johnny Mercer's Pier. Bertha sheared off about 50 feet of the structure, one of the island's most famous landmarks.
Residents of Kure Beach, a resort 15 miles south of Wilmington, also saw their fishing pier smashed in the monster surf. A couple of pylons still protruded from the water, while the splintered planks washed up on the beach.
``I've never seen waves like this all my life,'' Kure Police Chief Dennis Cooper said as the sea churned rubble from the pier. ``We were at low tide when the storm hit. That's probably what saved the rest of the town.''
In Brunswick County, just southwest of Wilmington, bursts of wind knocked over fast-food restaurant signs and even mailboxes. A tornado was reported west of Wilmington near the Winnabow community.
For northeastern Carolina residents, the storm wasn't as frightening to the people who refused to evacuate as it could have been.
Earlier predictions called for Bertha to roar north across the entire Outer Banks. But word spread about 5:30 p.m. that the first storm of the year to make landfall here had swung inland at Wrightsville, to the south.
By 7 p.m., winds were blowing at 55 mph steadily and were gusting upward of 70 mph at Allen Burrus' Hatteras home. Sheets of rain were slanting across his porch from the southeast. And cable television had been cut off on the island - denying access to Weather Channel updates.
Waves were churning across the shores, and sand was blasting sideways off the dunes and along the beaches.
Nonetheless, some people foolhardily insisted on challenging the elements. Two windsurfers swooped over ocean swells in Kill Devil Hills at 6:45 p.m. And four men - chugging Rolling Rock beers between dives - swam through the choppy surf at Avalon Pier.
``It's just something to do,'' said Jeff Keesee, 21. ``We wanted to swim during a hurricane.''
Five hours before Hurricane Bertha swung ashore it blew away waves of complacency which had swept across the Outer Banks.
Residents of the isolated islands of Ocracoke and Hatteras who had decided to ride it out were noticeably apprehensive. And shopkeepers shuttered their doors all the way north to Corolla. Streets were virtually empty except for emergency vehicles and television trucks.
And even stalwart residents sticking out the storm were starting to speculate - and get a little skittish - about what would happen if the swirling hurricane churned north along the beach or, worse yet, sped up the sounds.
``It's a scary thing,'' said Canaan Merillat, 24, who was taking down a pig-shaped wind chime that hung in front of Bubba's Bar-B-Que on Hatteras Island. Merillat lost all his belongings three summers ago when Hurricane Emily flooded his Frisco house. He was heading home about 1 p.m. Friday to move his clothing, books and keepsakes off the floor, above the flood zone.
``There's a lot of damage that could be done again.''
Burrus, an owner of Burrus' Red-and-White grocery in Hatteras Village, agreed. ``Emily scared a lot of people,'' Burrus said of the August 1993 storm that most locals use as a benchmark for bad blows. ``That was the highest tide we've had.''
With memories of the last storm flooding their minds - and in deference to the recent one blowing off their beaches - Hatteras Islanders moved their vehicles to high ground Friday and tied down other loose ends.
Dozens of trucks and cars lined the slightly sloping streets near Billy Mitchell airfield, which is a few feet above the rest of the island. The lot at Avon Post Office was filled with four-wheel-drives. And boat trailers - with vessels of various sizes tied on top - took up several parking spaces each at Cape Hatteras Baptist Church, making the lot look like a marina.
Picnic tables, turned on their tops, were tied between trees. Volunteer firemen scoured the villages, turning off propane tanks at evacuated homes and shops. Small branches, leaves and limbs had blown across N.C. 12 in Frisco by 4 p.m., when the winds started whipping into gusts of 30 mph.
The free state ferry between Hatteras and Ocracoke islands had stopped running by noon.
``If they wanted to leave, they should have already,'' said Ferry Capt. Dan O'Neal, who helped bring the last almost-empty boat across Hatteras Inlet. O'Neal estimated that about 300 of Ocracoke's 700 permanent residents remained on the island despite Wednesday's mandatory evacuation. ``It'd take an act of Congress to make them leave,'' he said.
A trio of windsurfers darted across Pamlico Sound at Canadian Hole about 3:30 p.m., their pointed sails, like colorful daggers, slicing the choppy water. Others began digging into their party supplies, celebrating Bertha's arrival by imbibing beer, wine and liquor.
``I stayed during the last one and didn't have any damage to my house, except for a couple of trees on it,'' said Frisco resident Johnnie Baum, 41, who was stocking up on cases of Pabst Blue Ribbon and cartons of cigarettes at Conner's Supermarket in Buxton. MEMO: Staff writers Paul South, Catherine Kozak, Mike Mather, Lorraine
Eaton and Jennifer McMenamin contributed to this report. Landmark News
Service also contributed. ILLUSTRATION: [Color Photos]
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Glen Reinhart, left, and Steve Thomas crawl to safety along a dock
in the Intracoastal Waterway at Wrightsville Beach, N.C., Friday.
They had walked out on the dock when a large wave crashed into them.
Map
UNIVERSITY OF HAWAII DEPARTMENT OF METEOROLOGY
At 11 p.m. the 400-mile-wide storm had weakened but still packed
75-mph winds.
HUY NGUYEN
The Virginian-Pilot
Ted Midgett carries Victoria Caldwell, 4, to his car after helping
her mother, Vicki, park her van along Billy Mitchell Road in Frisco,
N.C., as the winds from Hurricane Bertha pounded the area. The site
is elevated, and residents parked there to protect vehicles from
possible flooding.
HUY NGUYEN
The Virginian-Pilot
Ellis Ransom of Frisco, N.C., braves the winds of Hurricane Bertha
as he heads out to the beach with his dog, Miss Budweiser. Small
branches, leaves and limbs were blowing across N.C. 12 in Frisco by
4 p.m. Friday, when the winds hit 30 mph in gusts.
TRACKER'S GUIDE
STEVE STONE
The Virginian-Pilot
KEYWORDS: HURRICANE BERTHA STORM DAMAGE FATALITY by CNB