THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, July 14, 1996 TAG: 9607140162
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A10 EDITION: FINAL
LENGTH: 193 lines
CHESAPEAKE
The bang brought everyone from their makeshift beds on the living room floor.
Tracy Melton rushed to the window. All she could see were branches. Then she saw a tree limb stabbing through the roof of her house, from floor to ceiling.
``Look! Look!'' said 17-month-old Ashley. That was all anyone could do at 3:30 a.m., with a hurricane howling outside and a tree crushing the bathroom, kitchen and attic.
Owner William Melton said he, his wife and two children were sleeping in the living room of their home on Laurel Avenue, near Indian River Shopping Center. They were heeding the advice of a TV weatherman to stay on the west side of the house.
When the tree fell around 3:30 a.m., it missed the bedrooms but punctured the kitchen ceiling and stabbed straight to the floor, 10 feet from where the Meltons were sleeping.
``Nobody got hurt,'' Tracy Melton said. ``Thank the Lord. We are blessed.''
William Melton remodels houses for a living and had just redone his own bathroom.
``I was joking. I said maybe the storm will give me a little work, some shingle repair. Of all the houses in Chesapeake, it had to hit this one.''
Some neighbors were equally frustrated.
On Oleander Avenue, a fallen tree smashed the corner off a brick house about 3 a.m. Owner Ronnie Loyd knew exactly what to do. He owns a tree service, so he called his workers Saturday morning to remove the offending limb.
``I heard this when it happened. It sounded like a bomb,'' neighbor Curtis Ashley said.
Elsewhere, police said U.S. Route 17 was partially blocked by trees near the North Carolina border, and utility crews were out all night because of power outages and high water.
``I think we were pretty lucky on this one,'' said utility worker Mike Jones. ``We've had northeasters that have kept us up longer than this.''
- Diane Tennant
OCEANFRONT
The beach held, the hotels stood. But the trees . . .
In Bertha's wake, Virginia Beach city crews ripped out about 30 new trees along Atlantic Avenue. All were healthy before Bertha. All leaned afterward.
``They break the roots, and you have to take them out,'' city groundskeeper Audrey Floyd said.
It was a small price to pay.
City officials had worried about losing miles of sandy beaches. They worried, too, of losing miles of shops and inns.
Neither happened. Sidewalks on Atlantic were covered with leaves and limbs. Some hotels lost marquees. But most stayed intact. Even the Virginia Beach Fishing Pier, jutting more than 300 feet into the Atlantic, weathered the storm almost unscathed. It opened by 8 a.m. Saturday.
The area did flood, as usual. At the Ramada Inn on 57th Street, a car stalled in bumper-high water and the owner had to spend the night.
Elsewhere, thrill-seekers cruised the resort strip.
``You wouldn't believe the people out at 3 a.m. I was amazed,'' said firefighter Dave Foxwell. ``I guess they just wanted to drive through a hurricane.''
By morning, lifeguards let sunbathers wander into the deceptively calm ocean up to their knees - but no farther. Under the mild surf lay a strong undertow.
``I've seen it worse over the years,'' said John Davis, a city landscaper working Saturday on the Boardwalk. ``I've seen northeasters that had more sand up here on the Boardwalk. One of them took away part of the 15th Street Pier a couple of years ago, but nothing like that happened last night.''
- Lynn Waltz
SANDBRIDGE
Homeowners and vacationers breathed a sigh of relief as the sun rose on an unscathed beach.
Hurricane Bertha left no noticeable damage. About the only victims were a huge tree that fell across Sandbridge Road - the only public road into and out of this Virginia Beach community - and a motorist who ran into it.
``It looks like it was less than a big northeaster,'' said Fire Captain James C. Donnelly.
Around 11 Friday night, a tree fell across Sandbridge Road, pulling down power lines. Then a teenager drove his Bronco into the tree. When he tried to get out, he was jolted by electricity and thrown backwards - but he was not seriously hurt, police said.
It took nearly four hours before Virginia Power could cut off the electricity and the tree could be removed. It was even longer before power was restored to all of Sandbridge.
Bertha made her strongest appearance at high tide Friday night at 6:25, causing minor flooding.
Twelve hours later, she was a non-event.
``Henry, we have beach out there. It looks great,'' Carolyn Rogers called to her husband Saturday morning.
By 8:50 a.m., Tim Miller was packing his Chevy pickup for Busch Gardens, the next stop on the Olean, N.Y., family's vacation. They weathered Bertha in a rental cottage on Sandfiddler Road. The only noticeable damage was a shattered rear truck window.
``We're used to blizzards and flooding,'' said Miller, 41. ``The kids will have something to talk about now. . . . This didn't put a damper on anything. It just added some excitement.''
But if Friday was a time to worry for some people, it was also a time to celebrate. Forty relatives gathered at a rehearsal dinner for a Virginia Beach couple, Mark Inderlied and Kris Kelly, who were to be married Saturday. They joked about the storm and suggested the couple name their first child Bertha or Bert.
``How many people can say they had Bertha come for a wedding?'' said Sylvia Boecker, a relative from Chicago, as she walked the beach.
- June Arney and Paul Clancy
NORFOLK
In downtown Norfolk, sandbags lined the doorway to Town Point Center, and one of the floodgates across Waterside Drive was closed, but neither precaution was necessary. In Norfolk, as in other Hampton Roads communities, the biggest problems were downed tree limbs and scattered power outages.
Part of Ghent lost electricity about 3:30 a.m. when a tree limb struck a power line, but by mid-morning, the sun was out and the flowers that had been blooming the day before were pretty well intact.
At Smitty's Trailer Park off Newtown Road, the only evidence of Bertha's fury by Saturday afternoon were scattered twigs and leaves.
``When you live in a mobile home, you always get nervous,'' said Frances Grimstead who has lived at Smitty's for 25 years. ``If it had gotten really worse than it did, we would have left.''
Steve J. Guletti said he spent most of Friday evening watching the Weather Channel to see whether Bertha would go the way of most other major storms.
``We're pretty lucky again,'' Guletti said. ``We never get really battered like they do in the Carolinas and the Caribbean.''
PORTSMOUTH
Bertha was gentle. Except for small tree branches and crape myrtle blossoms littering the ground, there was little evidence of it by mid-morning Saturday.
A few broken power lines caused by falling tree limbs and other minor inconveniences were the only visible damage within the city.
Flooding was minor. Water on Effingham Street up to 2 feet deep quickly receded when the rain stopped for less than an hour Friday afternoon. Tidal flooding also was minimal, and some riverfront areas that have been inundated in past storms did not flood at all.
``I looked out my window at high tide this morning and the wind was blowing the water out, so it never came close to spilling over,'' Swimming Point resident Sue Landerman said Saturday. Swimming Point borders on Crawford Parkway in Olde Towne, a street frequently closed by flooding during minor storms.
By early Saturday, most fallen tree limbs had been cleared away by owners. Power was back in most places.
A city-operated shelter opened Friday night at Woodrow Wilson High School, but 39 people came. By Saturday morning, they were gone.
- Ida Kay Jordan
EASTERN SHORE
KIPTOPEKE - To outsiders watching Sonny Costin slog through 2 feet of water in the bottom of his old flatboat Saturday morning, Bertha looked like a disaster.
In fact, it was just a distraction. Those clams don't care about gale-force winds and 4 inches of rain, so neither does he.
``I'll pull the top off, drain the carburetor - it'll fire right up,'' said Costin, who has lived on the Eastern Shore all of his 66 years and has been crabbing, clamming or fishing all but the first four.
The remains of a hurricane that teased the Eastern Shore left behind little more than a few felled trees, a swamped skiff or two and a whole lot of water where none used to be.
The word from the locals, who view Virginia's coastal waterways the way most Southsiders think of sidewalks: No big deal.
``It was a lot like Hazel,'' Costin said. ``Took the same path.''
``How about Donna?'' asked Larry Latimore, another native.
``What?''
``Donna. In 1960, I think,'' Latimore said.
``Sure, I remember. That ran up the Bay, didn't it? None of it's any worse than a real good northeaster.''
Even 84-year-old Lillie M. Lister, who slept on a couch to avoid the massive limb hanging over her bedroom - only to have an umbrella tree crack off and smack the front where she was sleeping - wasn't all that impressed.
``Oh, I looked out last night and figured all of the neighborhood was blowing away. There was that tree trying to come right in through the front door.
``But I come out this morning and that's all there is. So we made out pretty good.''
- Robert Little ILLUSTRATION: Photos
CANDICE C. CUSIC/The Virginian-Pilot
An exhausted William Melton sits outside his home while his son,
Trey, 7, plays on the family swingset. The Meltons awoke early
Saturday morning to find a large tree resting on the roof of their
home.
MARTIN SMITH-RODDEN/The Virginian-Pilot
Maryland visitor Rod Sommerfield walks his dog under the
storm-battered sign at Sandbridge Restaurant.
VICKI CRONIS/The Virginian-Pilot
Sonny Costin, 66, waits for his son to help him bail out his boat.
Costin left it Friday moored in Kiptopeke and came back Saturday
morning to find it filled with rain and seawater.
KEYWORDS: HURRICANE BERTHA AFTERMATH by CNB