DATE: Tuesday, June 10, 1997                TAG: 9706100232

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B1   EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA 

SOURCE: BY CATHERINE KOZAK, STAFF WRITER 

DATELINE: KILL DEVIL HILLS                  LENGTH:  103 lines

DARE PREPARES FOR HURRICANE SEASON

While Dare County residents still shiver under an unusually cool late spring, the Atlantic hurricane season that began June 1 has put local officials in the hot seat.

``When the wind starts blowing, and the water starts rising, it certainly affects everyone here,'' said Dare County Emergency Operations Center Director Sandy Sanderson. ``Certainly, there are hundreds of little decisions that have to be made in a hurricane event, but most important is to move people out of harm's way.''

Speaking Monday at a hurricane seminar sponsored by the Outer Banks Chamber of Commerce and the Dare County Emergency Management office, Sanderson said the county has already issued reentry permits for all county residents.

This year, the permits distinguish between resident and non-resident property owners. He said the county is also working on improving communication with business owners, many of whom criticized what they viewed as two premature evacuations ordered last summer for Hurricanes Bertha and Fran.

Officials also said that The Weather Channel, which has been accused of mentioning the Outer Banks excessively and, as a result, scaring away tourists, will attempt to be more specific both in reporting where hurricanes have landed in the past and in predicting the path of impending hurricanes.

But with the county population of 28,000 surging in the summer to more than 200,000 on holiday weekends, Dare officials face daunting evacuation decisions, Sanderson said.

``We want to make sure that if we're going to screw up, we're not going to hurt anybody.''

Hurricane forecaster William Gray of Colorado State University predicts this season will be slightly more active than average - 11 tropical storms in the Atlantic, of which seven will develop into hurricanes. Three of the hurricanes are expected to be intense.

Of the Atlantic and Gulf states, North Carolina has been hit by the second-largest number of hurricanes. Florida tops the list.

And with some stretches of road on the barrier islands just inches above sea level, the Outer Banks is exceptionally vulnerable if a storm hits.

``It really doesn't matter how many storms or hurricanes you have,'' said Max Mayfield, a hurricane specialist for the National Hurricane Center. ``What does matter is if they make landfall and how strong they are.''

Mayfield, one of five hurricane experts who addressed the crowd of about 100 municipal and county officials and emergency personnel, said that the science of storm prediction, despite impressive advances over the years, is still not very accurate until about 24 hours before landfall.

Consequently, forecasters look at wider areas than will be ultimately affected days later.

``The real damage is usually in a 50-mile swath,'' Mayfield said. ``The average forecast error in 24 hours is 100 miles. The storm usually affects 125 miles of coastline.'' And the unreliability goes up with two- and three-day forecasts, he added.

``There are a lot of people out there now who are asking for a five-day forecast and I wonder what good that will do,'' he said. ``Even though the forecasts are improving, we still have a long, long way to go.''

Rainfall, wind speed and direction, and the track and speed of the storm all play into how an area will fare if the hurricane makes landfall. And the intensity is not the most dangerous factor, at least in itself.

``You evacuate for storm surge and you hide from the wind,'' Mayfield said. Storm surges - wind and pressure forces in the hurricane that cause water to rise onto the shore - cause about 90 percent of storm-related deaths, he said. ``But at the same time, you don't want to stay in poorly constructed homes.''

In stunning videos - made by hurricane chasers and shown by Brian Javinen, a storm surge modeler for the National Hurricane Center - houses, cars and beach structures were battered into pieces in minutes by surging waves. Roadway edges were eaten away by storm-driven water. Other pictures showed condominium-style housing wiped into oblivion, trees uprooted, and houses tossed yards beyond the beachfront. In one instance, storm surge carried several cows to the top of a house, stranding them on the roof when the waters finally subsided.

With Highway 12 on Hatteras - the island's only road - flooding even in a brisk northeaster, and the low-lying land between the ocean and sounds, storm surge is a big concern to Dare County emergency managers.

Officials need to consider the evacuation of tourists and special-need citizens in Dare County and also the impact of evacuation on Currituck and Ocracoke. The isolated Hyde County island of Ocracoke, accessible only by ferry or small plane, usually issues mandatory evacuations up to 36 hours before Dare County.

Storm surge computer models created two years ago have helped forecasters predict worst-case scenarios that emergency managers can use in making decisions to evacuate.

``The problem is if you've never seen the worst, you don't know where the water will go and what it will do,'' said Bill Massey, hurricane program planner for the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

Massey said his agency is making sure that emergency shelters are safely above the flood-prone area, citing one example of a school, used as a shelter, that was situated lower than originally believed.

Sanderson said the county is sympathetic to the business owners' loss of income when an evacuation is ordered, but he said many factors have gone into the Emergency Operations Center's official decision when a storm threatens the Outer Banks.

``The barrier islands we live on are not even a roadblock, a bump in the road, when you look at the size of these storms,'' he said. ``In the EOC, we live or die every six hours.'' ILLUSTRATION: [Color Photo]

MIKE HEFFNER

The Virginian-Pilot file photo

Hurricane Fran left I-40 near Burgaw flooded last year, but business

owners said evacuation orders in the Outer banks were premature.

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