THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, July 24, 1996 TAG: 9607240367
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
SOURCE: BY MASON PETERS, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: ELIZABETH CITY LENGTH: 52 lines
Two dozen disaster experts responsible for protecting Outer Banks residents and tourists from hurricanes met in Elizabeth City on Tuesday to plan how they'll do the job.
``No matter what we do, we can do it better, and that's what we were talking about today - the lessons of Hurricane Bertha,'' said H. Douglas Hoell Jr., northeastern coordinator for the state Division of Emergency Management.
Hoell met with public safety officials from Corolla to Ocracoke in a meeting at BJ's Restaurant at Elizabeth City.
All of the emergency managers and police and sheriff's officers agreed that during hurricane conditions in coastal counties more tactical on-scene input from officers with walkie-talkies or car transmitters will be needed.
Sandy Sanderson, Dare County emergency management coordinator, pointed out that even though the National Weather Service has upgraded hurricane-forecasting equipment along the mid-Atlantic coast, it has done so at a cost.
``For the northern Outer Banks and coastal areas, the source for Weather Service hurricane information is now a weather radio installation at Wakefield, Va., west of Norfolk, that broadcasts on 162.55 megacycles,'' said Sanderson. ``For areas around and below Albemarle Sound, the source is another new Weather Service transmitter at Newport, N.C.
``Wakefield and Newport warnings are on different radio frequencies. Newport now relays weather information to a Cape Hatteras transmitter that is on 162.475 megacycles.''
Meanwhile, the Newport transmitter also relays another forecast to New Bern on still another frequency: 162.400 megacycles.
The same forecast will be aired on each frequency, but it will take some getting used to since, in the past, one frequency covered the entire region.
James ``PeeWee'' Edwards, director of Pasquotank County's central communications system, said plans for greater input from individual public safety officers could be expected when the next hurricane comes around.
``All of the National Weather Service facilities will be expecting eye-witness accounts of wind speed and direction as well as flooding conditions,'' said Pasquotank County Sheriff Randy Cartwright.
Meteorologists in Raleigh, Newport and Wakefield agreed that greater individual input from on-scene observers could create a more accurate picture of the changing dimensions and direction of a hurricane.
Meanwhile, at another Emergency Management meeting in Wilmington, state and federal agencies met to discuss ways of speeding requests for help for Hurricane Bertha storm damage.
James Hegele, a public information officer for the agency, said state and federal agencies were developing methods of speeding help via fax and telephone. by CNB