Winds lash coastal Va., N.C.; more damage possible today

NORFOLK

Rain and wind caused some flooding in Hampton Roads and North Carolina's Outer Banks on Monday as people tried to clean up from storms Sunday night.

The National Weather Service issued a high wind warning for Hampton Roads and parts of northeastern North Carolina from 3 p.m. Monday until 4 a.m. today, as well as a coastal flood warning for Norfolk and Portsmouth from midnight Monday until 6 a.m. today.

Wind gusts had the potential to reach 60 mph, the weather service said. Sustained gusts of 40 mph or more or gusts of more than 58 mph can cause property damage. The most serious gusts in Hampton Roads were recorded at 40 to 50 mph, the weather service said Monday night.

A tornado ripped across 25 miles of Bertie County, N.C., about 6:30 p.m. Sunday.

Two tornadoes touched down in Currituck County, N.C., just before 8 p.m. Sunday, knocking down trees and blocking U.S. 158 for about two hours. No serious damage or injuries were reported, said Randall Edwards, a county spokesman.

One of the tornadoes is reported to have passed through a wooded area between Maple Road and Indiantown Road. The highway, known as Short Cut Road, is the main route between Elizabeth City and Barco.

The other tornado struck in Jarvisburg near the Grave Digger monster truck property, causing minor damage, Edwards said.

In Norfolk on Sunday night, strong winds blew trees onto cars, scattered limbs across yards and roads, and knocked off the top of a church on Goff Street.

Winds blowing about 35 mph most of Monday afternoon on the Outer Banks pushed sound water over roads in low-lying areas of Dare County, including Hatteras Island and Roanoke Island.

At about 5 p.m., most flooded roads were passable but slow-moving, said Sandy Sanderson, the director of Dare County Emergency Management. Water on the road ranged from 4 inches to just less than a foot.

Ferries stopped running back and forth to Ocracoke Island at 2 p.m. The ferry division got one ferry running about 7 p.m., but then stopped ferry service again because winds were too strong.

Yvonne Gray-Garcia, who was driving an all-wheel-drive Subaru, was waiting in Hatteras in the late afternoon to catch a ferry to the island. Accompanied by her daughter and her sister, Gray-Garcia was visiting the Outer Banks from Fort Collins, Colo.

"We knew what we were in for," she said. "It's an adventure - and we all swim."

On the heels of a tornado that destroyed homes in Suffolk on April 28, the unstable weather patterns in Hampton Roads and coastal North Carolina have made it appear to some that the sky is falling.

Such weather isn't unheard of locally, an expert said.

"A two-word explanation would be that it's spring," said Bill Sammler, the warning coordination specialist at the National Weather Service office in Wakefield. "Once we get from, say, mid-April to, say, the early or middle part of June, that is really peak tornado time in the United States and in the mid-Atlantic region."

A tornado of the strength that struck Suffolk hits the mid-Atlantic every five or 10 years, he said.

The Suffolk tornado was followed by tornadoes touching down Friday and Sunday in North Carolina.

"To have two or three of those events in roughly the same area in relatively a short period of time doesn't happen very often," Sammler said.

In Suffolk, a smattering of power lines fell onto trees and cars on Sunday.

"It was just significant, I thought, that all of this activity was going on around the same time period," said Jim Judkins, the city's emergency management coordinator. "It's weather we normally see in the Midwest this time of year, not on the Southeast coast."

Thousands in southeastern Virginia lost power Sunday night. At one point Sunday, more than 19,000 were without electricity, Dominion Virginia Power said. By midnight, about 7,750 were without power.

Most customers had power back on by Monday night.

Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel officials restricted vehicles from crossing the span on Monday because of winds gusting up to 47 mph. Motorcycles, large pickup campers and house trailers were not allowed to cross.

Today's weather service forecast for Norfolk calls for a high of 67 and winds between 17 and 21 mph. There is a chance of rain before 8 a.m.

The forecast for Elizabeth City was almost the same.

 Staff writers Cindy Clayton and Jim Washington and correspondent Connie Sage contributed to this story.

Patrick Wilson, (757) 446-2957, patrick.wilson@pilotonline.com

Catherine Kozak, (252) 441-1711, catherine.kozak@pilotonline.com