THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, September 5, 1996 TAG: 9609050591
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY STEVE STONE AND PAUL SOUTH, STAFF WRITERS
LENGTH: 163 lines
It looks like Hugo all over again.
The eye of Hurricane Fran - as large and potentially as strong as the devastating 1989 hurricane that slammed the Carolinas - is expected to make landfall somewhere between Charleston, S.C., and Wrightsville Beach, N.C., early Friday.
But its full force - winds forecast to be at 130 mph with gusts to 160 mph - will be felt as soon as tonight. Tropical storm conditions should be spreading steadily across an increasingly wide swath of the Southeast coast today.
Once ashore, Fran threatens to become a flood machine, dumping huge amounts of rain over the already saturated Southeast - including inland Virginia and North Carolina.
``We're very concerned that the rainfall will be enough to see some extreme flooding,'' said John Hope, senior meteorologist at The Weather Channel in Atlanta. ``We don't expect it to move very fast, so we could see 10 inches and in excess of that in some areas.''
The entire length of the North and South Carolina coasts is under a hurricane warning; a hurricane watch is in effect for Hampton Roads and coastal Virginia, from Chincoteague south.
With Fran's leading cloud bands sweeping over the coastline from Miami to Hatteras on Wednesday night, hundreds of thousands of people were on the move, fleeing inland or getting ready to evacuate coastal communities and the barrier islands, including Ocracoke.
``We felt we had a small window of opportunity to get folks off the island,'' Hyde County Commissioner David Styron said. If the storm follows the forecast, gale-force winds could reach Ocracoke this afternoon.
``If that happens, then the ferries would stop running, and we couldn't get anybody off,'' Styron said. ``Plus, if you start having to deal with ocean overwash on N.C. Route 12, we'd be stuck. We felt it was best to make a decision now.''
Styron estimated that 1,200 to 1,500 tourists and about 700 to 800 year-round residents were on Ocracoke, which can be reached only by ferry and plane. ``We feel we should be able to get everybody off the island fairly quickly,'' he said.
Ferries linking Ocracoke to Hatteras Island were to run all night.
Coast Guard officials called Ocracoke businesses to alert them to the evacuation. Word of mouth spread the news quickly among the residents and visitors.
``I imagine some people will leave,'' said Byron Miller, a bartender at Howard's Pub on the south end of the island. ``But I'm staying. I've lived on this island for 23 years, and the only time I ever left was for Gloria. Then, I got stuck in some fleabag motel on the mainland - and I vowed never to leave again.''
Officials know some people won't take their advice.
``You can't make people leave,'' said Mitchell Newman, Hyde County's emergency management director. ``But if you order them to leave, then you're not responsible if they don't.''
Along the North Carolina coast, 8- to 10-foot swells already were being reported Wednesday night, stirring up very rough surf and dangerous rip currents. People were being urged to stay out of the water.
And seas are expected to get rougher still.
The National Weather Service warned that tides will increase today as Fran approaches and that ocean overwash is likely to occur along North Carolina Route 12 early this afternoon around high tide.
Strong winds out of the east and southeast are expected to push water up the Neuse and Pamlico rivers, and storm surges ``will likely equal or exceed those that occurred during Hurricane Bertha,'' earlier this year, the Weather Service said.
With clear memories of Hugo's destruction, South Carolina Gov. David Beasley declared a state of emergency, called up the National Guard and ordered a mandatory evacuation of his state's entire coast, affecting nearly a half-million people. ``Fran is a large and brutal storm, and she is not to be trifled with in any shape, fashion or form,'' he said.
Hope, of The Weather Channel, said, ``This hurricane is just as large as Hugo was, and we're afraid it might get as strong.''
The National Hurricane Center in Miami agreed.
``Comparisons to Hugo are appropriate,'' said Ed Rappaport, a Hurricane Center meteorologist. ``Fran is about as large as Hugo with sustained hurricane-force winds (in excess of 74 mph) extending out as much as 145 miles. It is not quite as strong as Hugo - yet.''
Hugo caused almost $8 billion in damage and killed 35 people as it tore through the Caribbean and up the East Coast. Most of the damage was in South Carolina.
The Hurricane Center warned that a storm surge of 12 to 16 feet is possible near and to the north of where the center makes landfall. And since the storm is moving slowly - and is as large as it is - ``landfall near high tide could be especially devastating.''
At 11 p.m., Fran's eye was about 335 miles southeast of Charleston, moving on a roughly northwest course. That motion was expected to continue through today.
Maximum sustained winds were near 115 mph, and some strengthening could occur today.
``The eye is getting a little bit better organized again,'' Hope said. ``And it hasn't crossed the Gulf Stream yet. It has all night tonight and tomorrow to intensify, and we don't see anything to destroy it.''
The storm's rapid strengthening did not come as a surprise. For a week Fran has followed in the wake of Edouard, another powerful storm that had reached Category 4 on the five-tier Saffir-Simpson scale.
As Edouard moved, it stirred up the ocean mightily, causing an upwelling that drew cold water from deep in the ocean to the surface. Since hurricanes thrive in warm water and stagnate and die in cold, the environment left behind by Edouard was only warm enough to sustain a minimal hurricane.
On Tuesday, however, Fran passed the point where Edouard had made a sharp northerly turn. The water was warmer, winds were favorable, and the hurricane rapidly intensified. Its barometric pressure, which drops as a storm gets stronger, plunged from 967 millibars at 5 p.m. Tuesday to 950 by 11 p.m. It was a ``powerful'' Category 3 storm, the Hurricane Center said.
The eye, almost perfectly centered amid the storm's wide-ranging ring of clouds, became well-defined. And the storm displayed a classic ``stadium effect,'' with satellite images showing distinct cloud levels rising from the eye.
Tropical storm-force winds in excess of 39 mph extend out almost 300 miles from the center.
The storm was moving forward at about 12 mph, slower than Hugo did when it hit the coast.
``We haven't seen anything out there that will speed this up,'' Hope said. ``That's good and bad. It's good in that hurricane-force winds will not extend as far inland'' before the storm begins to weaken after reaching land. ``But the downside is that the rain will be more prolonged.''
The Federal Emergency Management Agency was preparing for the worst. Director James Lee Witt said six tractor-trailers loaded with cots, tents, generators, blankets and other supplies were ready to move out. And the Agriculture Department has emergency food shipments ready.
As the storm approaches, travel in the Southeast United States is expected to get difficult. Airports may close, and train and bus service could be disrupted. ILLUSTRATION: Color photo
ASSOCIATED PRESS
An enhanced-satellite photo shows Fran hovering off the East Coast
at 5 p.m. Wednesday.
Graphic
VP
STRIKE PROBABILITY
FRAN MAY INTENSIFY: WHAT IT COULD MEAN
Current Strength: Category 3
Wind 111-130 mph. Mobile homes destroyed. Roof, window and door
damage to houses and buildings, some structural damage to small
ones. Poorly built signs and large trees downed. Tidal surge 9-12
feet above normal, destroying houses and small buildings near shore
and battering larger ones with waves and flotsam. Low-ground escape
routes flooded 3 to 5 hours before landfall of hurricane's center.
Flatlands, five feet or less above sea level, flood to eight miles
inland.
What it could be: Category 4
Category 4
Wind 131-155 mph. Shrubs, trees and all signs downed. Extensive
roof, window and door damage, complete failure of roofs on many
houses, complete destruction of mobile homes. Tidal surge 13-18 feet
above normal, floods on flatlands 10 feet or less above sea level
and as far as six miles inland, cutting off escape routes.
Near-shore houses and buildings would suffer major damage or be
destroyed. Massive evacuation of all housing within 500 yards of
shore and one-story houses on low ground within two miles.
KEYWORDS: HURRICANES HURRICANE FRAN by CNB