THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, July 14, 1996 TAG: 9607140040
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY JENNIFER MCMENAMIN, LORRAINE EATON AND MIKE MATHER, STAFF
WRITERS
DATELINE: NAGS HEAD LENGTH: 104 lines
For the first time in four days, more people were coming to the Outer Banks Saturday than were leaving.
Four-wheelers with surfboards, beach chairs and coolers strapped to their roofs started streaming across the sounds to the barrier islands only hours after Hurricane Bertha gave the Outer Banks a modest pummeling.
Bertha - the latest of many ``Oh, never mind'' hurricanes whose bark around here was worse than their bite - left a wide wake of downed tree limbs, saltwater flooding and power outages.
The storm's heaviest punches were delivered to the south and west of the barrier islands late Friday before it rolled on to the north.
``We got really lucky,'' said Mike L. Warren, the 48-year-old captain of the charter fishing boat Hatteras Blue at the Hatteras Harbor Marina. ``It looked like a lot of folks weathered the storm fine.''
As soon as Bertha pulled away from the Outer Banks, Karen Coennen and her family from Pittsburgh pulled in.
They drove all night Friday - 530 miles through driving winds and pelting rain. Coennen, her husband and three children arrived in Kitty Hawk about 8 a.m. Saturday.
``I said we were going no matter what,'' Coennen said, climbing out of her teal Chevrolet conversion van. ``We weren't going to let any ol' hurricane scare us away. We drove all the way - 8 1/2 hours - not knowing what to expect. We figured we'd just keep driving until we could come in. . . . I figured, the worst case, we'd just keep circling like an airplane'' until all was clear.
By daybreak Saturday, it was.
A procession of motorists moved past golfers hacking across the storm-sopped Nags Head fairways, past windsurfers at Canadian Hole whose sails gobbled the brisk onshore breezes, past business owners hustling to peel protective plywood from their shops in time to woo the returning revenue, and past surfers scrambling over the Pea Island dunes to catch the last of the storm-spawned swells.
Merchants from Duck through Nags Head were predicting that business would be back to normal today. Hotel operators expected near-capacity crowds Saturday night. And rental cottage owners reveled in the knowledge that new arrivals could get in their full week of Saturday-to-Saturday bookings.
By lunchtime Saturday, visitors were beginning to resume - or embark on - their beach vacations under a blue sky, bright sun and delightful 80-degree day. Piers were filling up with fishermen. And sales of newly printed Hurricane Bertha T-shirts were brisk.
``We welcome the tourists back - and are very sorry for the inconvenience Bertha caused them,'' Clarence Skinner said at 7:30 a.m. Saturday when his Dare County Control Group - a coalition of decision-makers for emergencies - lifted travel restrictions and states of emergency and welcomed everyone back onto the barrier islands. ``We were spared the full onslaught of Bertha. And the beautiful Outer Banks are still intact.
``Come on back and enjoy yourselves.''
Officials evacuated Hatteras and Ocracoke islands Wednesday morning as the storm surged off south Florida. They ordered everyone off the rest of the Outer Banks Thursday afternoon when the storm slid up the Atlantic shore. By midday Friday - a few hours before the worst winds began whipping along North Carolina's oceanfront - only local residents and news crews remained in Dare County.
Elizabeth City - almost under the eye of the storm when it passed at 10 p.m. - had wind damage and heavy flooding. Ruby Jackson of Elizabeth City died when her car slammed into another in a crash in Kitty Hawk blamed on the storm.
But beach communities from North Carolina's central coast to the South Carolina border took the brunt of Bertha's blow. Piers at Carolina Beach and Kure Beach collapsed into the Atlantic. Roofs blew off several homes on Emerald Isle. At Cedar Point, houses were submerged in saltwater almost halfway up their first stories. And a pleasure boat slammed into the major bridge over the Pamlico River in Washington City, causing police to shut down the span.
Gov. James B. Hunt Jr. flew across the state Saturday to survey the storm damage.
Between Corolla and Ocracoke, effects of the hurricane were minimal - especially given the potential Bertha packed.
Ocracoke islanders were still without phone service and power in some places at noon Saturday, and officials reported that stretches of N.C. 12 were blocked by sand and water.
Bulldozers were scooping sand and saltwater off N.C. 12 in Hatteras Village before breakfast. The Manns Harbor Marina on the mainland was submerged in about three feet of saltwater.
Most northern beach businesses had taken the boards off their windows and were welcoming customers by 10 a.m. Only the ocean remained off-limits to swimmers as choppy waves and dangerous rip currents continued to lurk near shore. But scores of surfers still skimmed across the 4-foot swells from Duck through Buxton.
``Hopefully, by noon, we'll get some shoppers in here again,'' said Keri Lushbaugh, who was hanging bathing suits on racks at Birthday Suits retail shop in Kill Devil Hills Saturday morning. ``They're starting to show up already. Let 'em get checked into their cottages. Then they'll head out and begin buying.
``I'm surprised so many people already are here.'' MEMO: Staff writers Lane DeGregory and Elizabeth Thiel contributed to
this report. ILLUSTRATION: Photo
HUY NGUYEN/The Virginian-Pilot
In Buxton, N.C., Saturday, Ritchie Barwick removes boards that had
protected the Diamond Shoals Restaurant's sign from wind and flying
debris. The restaurant's staff planned to reopen this morning.
KEYWORDS: HURRICANE BERTHA AFTERMATH OUTER BANKS by CNB