THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, October 9, 1996 TAG: 9610090387
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY JON FRANK, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: 96 lines
Wind and rain from the remnants of Tropical Storm Josephine flooded streets, knocked out power to thousands of residents and played havoc with motorists in Hampton Roads on Tuesday as the storm sprinted up the East Coast.
As much as 5 inches of rain fell in heavy squalls Tuesday morning, contributing to more than 70 car accidents in southeastern Virginia, said Virginia State Police spokeswoman Tammy Van Dame.
No one was seriously injured.
``It was a mess,'' Van Dame said.
The highest winds blew through at about noon, with Cape Henry and the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel recording gusts of about 63 mph. Winds as high as 61 mph buffeted Langley Air Force Base in Hampton.
Winds reached hurricane strength at Cape Hatteras, where gusts hit 75 mph, said Neil Stuart of the National Weather Service in Wakefield.
Stuart said the fast-moving storm was not ``terribly unusual'' at this time of year.
``A lot of storms, as they pass through, move fairly quickly,'' Stuart said. ``The further north they get, the closer they get to the jet stream, which really gets them moving.''
Stuart said Josephine will be nothing but a memory by this morning, when skies should be clear. Partly cloudy skies are forecast for the rest of the day with highs in the 60s.
About 26,000 customers in South Hampton Roads and the Peninsula lost power Tuesday morning, said a spokeswoman for Virginia Power.
The spokesman said 9,000 customers, most of them on the Peninsula, were still without power at about 3 p.m. At least part of the Kings Forest section of Virginia Beach also was without power Tuesday evening.
Up to 5 inches of rain had fallen by Tuesday night in Virginia Beach, according to the National Weather Service. Chesapeake and Norfolk reported almost 4 inches. Totals from Suffolk and Portsmouth were not available..
The Virginia Beach Operations Department logged about 250 reports of flooding Tuesday.
Parts of three streets in Virginia Beach - Salem Road, West Neck and Elbow Road - were closed for several hours because of standing water. ``This storm dumped a lot of water quick,'' said Charles Fullerton, a waterways maintenance engineer with the city's Public Works Operations division. ``It's deep and it's wet.''
Street flooding near the Elizabeth River also occurred in Norfolk and Portsmouth.
The heaviest rains were in North Carolina, where 7.2 inches were reported in Currituck County. The precipitation, along with high tides, sent foot-deep floodwaters surging across many highways in northeastern North Carolina.
The heavy rains came after Josephine was downgraded from a tropical storm following its landfall late Monday in Florida. What remained of the storm was centered over east-central North Carolina late Tuesday morning, moving northeast at 40 mph.
Gale warnings were posted along the East Coast as far north as New England. The warnings meant winds of 39 mph to 54 mph could be expected.
In Virginia, Tuesday's weather caused the Navy to scrub plans to send 1,200 civilians to sea aboard five warships as part of its ``Fleet Week'' celebration.
Lake Taylor Middle School in Norfolk was evacuated when a downed tree limb hit a power line, causing the school's generator to overheat. The school's 880 pupils and staff rushed to the high school next door and stayed there until firefighters determined there was no danger of a fire. The pupils were sent home an hour early.
``This was in the height of the storm, so everybody was soaked,'' principal Toni Portlock said.
The ferry between Jamestown and Surry County stopped running for two hours because of high winds and water levels about 4 feet above normal, officials said.
Although no tornadoes were confirmed, there were several reports of tornado-like winds.
In Virginia Beach, winds lifted a fence from its stakes along Pleasure House Road, leaving it strewn across several vehicles, said Gordon Christie, owner of the Grand Affairs catering service. MEMO: Staff Writers Lori Denney, Cindy Clayton and Paul South, and The
Associated Press, contributed to this story. ILLUSTRATION: Photo by Steve Earley/The Virginian-Pilot
Scott Perkins tries to clear debris Tuesday from a storm drain at
the intersection of 25th Street and Arctic Avenue in Virginia Beach.
High winds knocked over trash cans in the area, spreading loose
trash in the streets.
Color photos by STEVE EARLEY/The Virginian-Pilot
Clockwise from top: Tracey Beasley braves the wind and rain on
Waterside Drive on her way to take a cruise on the Spirit of
Norfolk. Floodwaters at the end of Tunstall Avenue in Norfolk's
Calvert Park section swallow a car late Tuesday morning. A strong
gust blows out Keith C. Cutrell Jr.'s umbrella outside the
NationsBank building in downtown Norfolk.
KEYWORDS: TROPICAL STORM JOSEPHINE WEATHER by CNB