Sept. 18, 2003 Washington Times articles

[Bennett D. Ebberly]

Carolinians take to the boards


By Mary Shaffrey
THE WASHINGTON TIMES


ATLANTIC BEACH, N.C. — The locals who decided to brave Hurricane Isabel were busy yesterday boarding up their homes — and surfing.
"The waves are really strong," said Billy Pullen, a landscaper from nearby Newport who came to surf with friends off the Triple S Pier. "They are huge, they are kickin' [and] they are smokin'."
Isabel had winds of 105 mph yesterday that were pushing high waves into the Carolinas, which was helping prolong Mr. Pullen's endless summer.
"Last week, I was in Florida, and I surfed [Hurricane] Fabian," said Mr. Pullen, 20. "As soon as I heard this was coming here, I decided to come up. We all know each other here and just have fun."
The Category 2 storm was about 300 miles southeast of Cape Hatteras late yesterday afternoon and moving northwest at about 15 mph. The National Hurricane Center in Miami expected it to hit the Carolina coast by this morning and produce surf 11 feet above normal.
Tony Turbeville, a commercial fisherman residing about 500 yards from the ocean, said he had been surfing for more than 25 years and wanted to have some fun before the storm drove everyone indoors.
"If you get waves like this, that this is the time to surf," said Mr. Turbeville, 40.
Cecil Brown, a real estate agent, came from Wilmington to watch over his parents' vacation home and ride a few waves.
"I am always apprehensive because you never know what is going to happen, but this is fun," said Mr. Brown, 29. "The northeast winds have kept the waves clean and well-formed."
A hurricane warning was in effect yesterday afternoon from Cape Fear, N.C., to Chincoteague, Va., but the rain and winds had arrived by late yesterday afternoon.
Not everyone on this southeast corner of North Carolina was as excited as the surfers about the powerful waves, including some middle schoolers enjoying the unexpected day off.
"I am not going out there," said Summer Renfrow, 14, whose friend Talton Cherry was surfing with the adults.
"I just like surfing a lot, and the waves aren't that big," said Talton, 13.
Haley Elizabeth Peel, 5, just wanted to stay at the beach and play with her aunt.
"We are going to paint each other's toenails," Haley said as she, her older brother and her aunt walked near the beach.
About half of the homes were boarded up with plywood, some spray-painted to indicate which room the board was covering and others with messages instructing the impending storm to "go away."
Many of the homes also were decorated with yellow ribbons and U.S. flags, signs of the community's ties to nearby Camp Lejeune Marine Corps Base and Cherry Point Marine Corps Air Station.
"There will be a lot of wind and a lot of rain," said Lana Ganim, 40, general manager of the Triple S Motel. "We will lose power because we have every time so far, and after the fact it gets real humid." The Triple S, the only motel on the island still open for business, was filled yesterday with journalists and locals afraid of staying in their mobile homes.
Bobbi Nichols of Winston-Salem was supposed to be enjoying her vacation at the retirement home she and her husband bought a few years ago. Instead, she was preparing food and securing the house before staying with a neighbor whose house had a more sturdy foundation.
"If I really thought my life was in danger, I'd be out of here," said Mrs. Nichols, 53. "I have too much to live for. I love my kids and my grandkids."
Not everyone who was here yesterday was planning on staying.
Joey Caviness traveled from Greensboro to pick up his boat and secure his home before heading back last night. "This is one of these adventures you don't have to go through twice," said Mr. Caviness, 47, who stayed for Hurricane Dennis in 1999.
The evacuation routes had heavy traffic yesterday, but no major backups were reported.
Some of the surfers said the waves were bigger Tuesday and that the storm would be less powerful than forecast.
Miss Ganim from the Triple S Motel thought otherwise. "There is always a calm before a storm," she said. "And you never know what is going to happen. You just never know."



Carolinians take to the boards


www.washtimes.com/metro/20030917-100119-4201r.htm

[Bennett D. Ebberly]

Bracing for Isabel's blow


By Jim McElhatton and Arlo Wagner
THE WASHINGTON TIMES


Transportation officials across the Washington metropolitan area will suspend all bus, train and subway services today and all area school officials have canceled classes as Hurricane Isabel creeps closer to the Mid-Atlantic coast.
The federal government also closed its offices today, giving some 350,000 workers a day off.
Metro officials said last night they will suspend all services to customers at 11 a.m. Amtrak officials canceled many of its trains leaving the District for cities in Virginia and North Carolina, where Isabel was expected to make landfall this morning.
"It's an issue of safety," Metro spokeswoman Cheryl Johnson said of the suspension. "With wind speeds that high, people could be blown into the path of a train or bus or knocked on the rail track bed."
Metro operates more than 1,400 buses over 340 bus routes, and trains on 130 miles of tracks, nearly one-half underground, to 47 underground stations.
Officials with the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) shut down the federal government after they became concerned about potential commuter transportation problems.
"The decision was made in the interest of public safety," said Brenda Bertrand, spokeswoman for OPM. "We took into account the difficulties that public transportation providers in the region will likely encounter as the weather deteriorates. We don't want a massive number of people stranded downtown."
Governors in Virginia and Maryland declared states of emergency, posting thousands of National Guard soldiers across the region.
Virginia Gov. Mark Warner authorized the evacuation of at least 86,500 residents in southeast Virginia after the National Weather Service extended a hurricane warning over that area north to Chincoteague. Maryland Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. ordered officials to evacuate all campers from state parks.
D.C. Mayor Anthony A. Williams also declared a state of emergency and closed all city government offices today and tomorrow.
City officials are putting snow emergency route regulations into effect at noon today, which means no parking will be allowed on roads marked with red and white snow emergency signs.
Transportation officials warned that commuters who show up for work today could be left stranded.
State transit officials canceled Maryland Rail Commuter and Virginia Rail Express service today. "This is clearly a unique situation," said MARC spokesman Richard Scher. "There is a better than average chance we'll be changing our plans on the fly as this develops."
Airline companies also scrambled to stay out of the way of the hurricane.
Airlines canceled Mid-Atlantic flights, tied down aircraft, moved them into hangars or had the planes flown out of the storm's path. Airport officials recommended that anyone scheduled to fly in the next few days call their airlines to check on flight changes before heading to the airport.
Meanwhile, Amtrak and Greyhound Lines canceled schedules south of Washington as weather forecasters predicted high winds, heavy rain and potential flooding in low-lying areas.
Hotels hundreds of miles from the coast filled up with seaside residents fleeing the storm.
Commuters today will have to drive, and officials say it could be dangerous.
"It's not the kind of weather anybody should be driving in," said Lon Anderson, a spokesman for AAA Mid-Atlantic, a local motor club.
Mr. Anderson said the ground is already so sodden that the hurricane likely will down many trees as it rolls through the region. "It's going to be dangerous out there," he said. We'll see a lot of trees and electric lines coming down. It's going to be a great day to call in sick if you can."
Utility officials also anticipate many downed power lines and the three major companies say they are prepared. Pepco, Baltimore Gas & Electric (BGE) and Dominion Virginia Power brought in hundreds of extra crews from out of town and had their own workers ready to restore electricity to customers who lose power.
Meanwhile, the D.C. Department of Public Works (DPW) crews kept busy bagging nearly 27 tons of sand through last night, while the city's emergency management center added staff from local nonprofit groups. As of yesterday afternoon, DPW handed out more than 500 sandbags to D.C. residents since Tuesday night.
State officials are taking precautions to protect residents, tourists and the Navy against the storm.
Mr. Warner authorized local governments in the "risk areas" to order some 1.6 million residents to evacuate. "People recognize this is a real deal," he said. "This is, in terms of prediction, perhaps the worst storm we've seen in decades."
U.S. Navy officials encouraged all except emergency crews of its 85,000 personnel and 107,000 dependents to leave the Norfolk area.
Langley Air Force Base and Bethel Manor military housing at Hampton were virtually closed because the base's runway is only about 11 feet above sea level. A surge of flooding from the Atlantic could raise water levels 7 to 11 feet above normal tides, forecasters have said.
Officials in Maryland yesterday opened an emergency operations center at a military camp in Reisterstown.
Mr. Ehrlich has said his biggest concern is flooding. "The most fearsome aspect of this storm is the flooding," said Quentin W. Banks Jr., a spokesman for the Maryland Emergency Management Agency. "Floods tend to kill more people than any other natural disaster."
The White House battened down the hatches as well. "We are working to secure items that may be blown away in the event of the high winds here," White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan said yesterday. "This could include flags. It could include the awnings around the complex. Those will likely be brought down. We'll be checking the drains in the complex to be sure that they are clear."
Isabel's arrival forced many community groups, churches and even couples taking the big plunge to rethink their plans this weekend.
"We're still on for now," said Louis Schiff, a wedding planner from McLean who spent yesterday finalizing the details of a client's ceremony Saturday in Annapolis. "Obviously, we're all concerned. But you look outside and it's beautiful out. It's hard to get in a state of absolute panic right now."
The Rev. Catherine Bego of the Upper Room Baptist Church in Northeast refused to call off her church's fourth annual outdoor "Spiritual Explosion." The community rally will be held at the church in the 3600 block of Minnesota Avenue at noon Saturday. "We've never had a rainout yet," she said. "We don't have a contingency plan in place, either. I believe we'll have clear skies. But the least we can do until then is pray on it."

•Brian DeBose, Patrick Badgley, Robert Redding Jr., Shayla Bennett, Tom Ramstack, Marguerite Higgins and Tarron Lively contributed to this report, which is based in part on wire service reports.


www.washtimes.com/metro/20030917-100135-4197r.htm

[Bennett D. Ebberly]

Storm shuts down area before first raindrop falls


By Jennifer Harper
THE WASHINGTON TIMES


The calm before the storm is anything but calm.
As Hurricane Isabel — actually the prospect of Hurricane Isabel — looms, much of the nation's capital struts to the frenzied cadence of warnings, closings, alarms and advisories for an event which may yield a storm o' the century. (The century is, after all, not yet 3 years old.)
Or it may be little more than the storm o' September.
But the frisson of disaster preparedness is already irresistible to citizen and official alike. If Isabel turns out to be only a squall, and television can return to real news, like J-Lo's broken engagement, the panic will be good practice for the first snowflake of January.
The great water ballet started in the supermarkets days ago, when Isabel was barely more than a gleam in a forecaster's eye, trolling the Atlantic off the Cape Verde Islands. The frantic and the thirsty began to fill their carts with bottled water and rolls of toilet paper. Comfort foods of every persuasion are now at a premium: what's a disaster without potato chips, tomato soup and frozen pizza?
"Entenmann's! Get me the Entenmann's," screamed one earnest homemaker as she rounded the corner of the bakery aisle at the Giant Food in Bethesda yesterday, trailing a toddler who had already broken into a designated box of emergency cookies.
Another man stood, thunderstruck in the desolation of the water aisle, where only a few chichi bottles of lime-flavored seltzer remained. Such fare would never do in the face of danger.
"That's all they have," he barked into his cell phone. A moment passed, he listened to instructions, then flung the bottles into his cart and scurried toward the battery display.
Isabel was wreaking havoc while still just a whirling red, blue and green Doppler splotch on the TV screen, leaving public officials, event planners, school administrators and other decision-makers in a quandary.
To cancel or not to cancel? To close or not to close? The chroniclers of the travails of officials who must divine the right call were ready with pencil and camera.
"Basically, we're d**n ed if we do, d**n ed if we don't," said one D.C. official who asked not to be named.
Before the first whispers of bad weather even reached the Beltway yesterday, schools and colleges announced they would shut for today and tomorrow as well — though a late-afternoon bulletin from the National Weather Service conceded that "the precise timing and location of landfall is uncertain."
Metro somberly hinted it would suspend service on all subway lines and buses because officials "were concerned about things like riders being blown off platforms onto tracks, or blown in front of buses."
"We're looking at some point probably closing down entirely," Metro spokeswoman Lisa Farbstein said.
Amtrak said it would stop train service south of Washington today, and other public safety officials warn that 911 emergency responses might cease if the winds got going.
And the infamous "tractor man" is off the hook for a few days. The trial of Dwight Watson, the tobacco farmer who gridlocked downtown in March by sitting atop his John Deere for three days on the Mall, has been delayed until next week.
"I suspect that by this time tomorrow we will be in some sort of weather emergency," U.S. District Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson told the courtroom.
"Thank you for postponing this trial until Monday because of the storm," Mr. Watson replied.
Meanwhile, an XV-15 tilt-rotor plane, an old Air France Concorde and a Boeing Stratoliner received their own hurricane preparations. Technicians at the new Air and Space Museum facility near Washington Dulles International Airport dragged them indoors ahead of schedule.
Spokesman Peter Golkin said the museum feared the old aircraft would get "battered around."
Not everybody is looking for the panic button. One veteran of the Iraq war can't wait to see the big blow. Marine Sgt. Keith Wheeler, who returned to the United States on Tuesday, has not seen rain for seven months.
"So he's going to get more than enough," his wife, Nickie, said. "A hurricane of homecoming."
Clemson University students and professors raced yesterday to build a quartet of 30-foot wind towers along the North Carolina coast to measure the wind speed of Hurricane Isabel near the ground.
"We'll probably venture in to where we get into say, 50 mph winds, so the students can all can feel the force," project leader Tim Reinhold said.
And smack in the middle of Chesapeake Bay, some 60 residents of Smith Island stayed behind to defy Isabel — and every warning that has been issued this week. "I've been here 65 years. I've never left for one yet. I was here for Hazel when the eye came right over the island," said waterman Eddie Evans, 65, as he sat on a dock repairing crab traps.
"It's fun," said an intrepid local in Kill Devil Hills, N.C., yesterday as he ordered a coffee at the Front Porch Cafe, a beachfront restaurant. "The adrenaline that gets going before a storm is cool."


www.washtimes.com/national/20030917-115035-3182r.htm

[Bennett D. Ebberly]

Inland hotels fill up as Isabel nears coast


By Marguerite Higgins
THE WASHINGTON TIMES


Hotels hundreds of miles from the coast are filling up fast as seaside residents flee Hurricane Isabel.
Managers said they expected high occupancy rates for the rest of the week, although rooms were still available in the Carolinas and Virginia yesterday.
By Tuesday afternoon, the Holiday Inn Express in Dunn, N.C., 40 miles south of Raleigh, was booked solid through tomorrow evening, said front-desk clerk Demetrice Massey.
"We really didn't expect this to happen so soon. We thought more people would wait and see," she said. The hotel is recruiting every available staffer to work an extra shift to accommodate the crowds, she said Tuesday.
Dozens of Studio 6, Motel 6 and Red Roof Inn motels near the evacuated regions are prepping for more bookings, said Eric Studer, marketing-services vice president for Accor North America.
"The managers are in a waiting period right now, especially because the hurricane was downgraded. But it could be upgraded just as easily," Mr. Studer said.
Hotels also may see extended bookings if the hurricane inflicts major residential damage, he said.
Further north in Woodbridge, Va., just 30 minutes south of Washington, hotel managers were expecting an evening rush from people evacuating Virginia Beach.
At the Rodeway Inn on Jefferson Davis Highway, General Manager Amy Latham said four persons had checked in by 3 p.m. yesterday. "Some of those people are coming up from Virginia Beach who have gotten a jump on the traffic," she said.
Ms. Latham said several local residents had also reserved rooms because they live in mobile homes.
"When the weather gets dangerous like this, you see people living in trailers seeking more secure shelter," she said.
Several evacuated families from Langley Air Force Base in Hampton, Va., have already settled into their temporary homes for the next few days at the Econo Lodge two miles down the road in Woodbridge.
"I don't know why they forced us to evacuate. I would have rather stayed at home," said Technical Sgt. Michelle Lindsey. Sgt. Lindsey, her husband and two children drove up to Woodbridge yesterday afternoon after being told to move 100 miles inland.
"We got lucky getting a room here because most of the places were already sold out when we called," Mrs. Lindsey said.
Air Force Master Sgt. John Hardina tried hotels in Richmond yesterday when he got the orders to evacuate, but had to change plans.
"Even the upscale hotels in Woodbridge were full when I looked online, so we were pretty fortunate. But this was not how I wanted to celebrate my 20th anniversary with the Air Force," which is tomorrow, Sgt. Hardina said.
His daughter, 12-year-old Veronica, disagreed: "It's pretty cool being able to miss school."
Hotels around the District were bracing yesterday for last-minute check-ins from stranded travelers and residents living in low-lying areas.
Managers at the Ritz-Carlton in Pentagon City and Tysons Corner plan to hand out Isabel survival kits, which include bottled water, granola bars, trail mix, apples and glow sticks.
The Four Seasons in Washington is offering a "Shelter from the Storm" discount for rooms tonight and tomorrow night. Rooms will go for $195 a night, compared with normal rates of $375 to $480.
Other hotels, like the Econo Lodge North in Winchester, Va., received only a handful of reservations.
"We've had a couple of calls but nothing major. People don't realize this hurricane is coming their way," said a front-desk clerk on Tuesday who asked not to be named.
Other hotels like the Best Western in Lynchburg, Va., about 114 miles west of Richmond, received several cancellations after Isabel was reduced to a Category 2 storm.
"We still have a 90 percent occupancy rate for Thursday night and 95 percent for Friday, so we're still pretty packed," said front-desk clerk Josh Jackson on Tuesday.
The Hampton Inn in Leesburg also received some cancellations from travelers who felt confident facing the storm.
"We've had some cancellations, but it's hard to say," said General Manager Alex Mai. "Depending on how this storm evolves, we may be sold out like we were yesterday."


www.washtimes.com/business/20030917-092350-4119r.htm

[Bennett D. Ebberly]

Isabel becomes a tropical storm

MIAMI, Sept. 18 (UPI) -- The National Hurricane Forecast Center in Miami announced Thursday evening Hurricane Isabel had weakened to tropical storm strength.

A tropical storm warning was posted north of Surf City, N.C., to Moriches Inlet, N.Y., including Pamlico and Albermarle sounds, as well as the tidal Potomac and Chesapeake Bay areas.

At 9 p.m. the center of the storm was located about 30 miles northwest of Emporia, Va., and was moving to the northwest at nearly 20 mph. A turn to the north-northwest was expected.

The center of Isabel was forecast to move across eastern Virginia toward western Pennsylvania Friday.

The storm at 9 p.m. Thursday had maximum sustained winds of about 70 mph, with higher gusts extending to 345 miles.

Although the storm will continue to weaken, forecasters said unusually strong winds, with gusts to hurricane force, were possible well inland.

Storm surge flooding of up to four feet above normal tide levels, along with dangerous battering waves, was forecast as possible along the Atlantic coast within the tropical storm warning area.

Storm surge flooding of up to six feet above normal tide levels was expected in the Chesapeake Bay area and the tidal portions of adjacent rivers.

Total rainfall from the storm will be up to 10 inches, with locally higher amounts. There was also the continued threat of isolated tornadoes over eastern Virginia, and southeastern Maryland through the nighttime hours.


www.washtimes.com/upi-breaking/20030918-060756-8837r.htm