THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, July 16, 1996 TAG: 9607160262
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
SOURCE: BY MASON PETERS, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: ELIZABETH CITY LENGTH: 61 lines
Joni and Walter Horner were delighted when they discovered that Hurricane Bertha had caused no serious damage to their waterfront home on the Pasquotank River.
But they had to admit that something smelled Saturday morning when the storm passed.
``We knew right away it was fuel oil,'' said Joni Horner, an artist who, with her husband, also makes miniature furniture for doll houses in the workshop behind their Riverside Avenue home.
``We could see an iridescent sheen from the oil spreading across the water in front of our house,'' Joni Horner said Monday.
The Horners called an emergency telephone number listed in the latest telephone directory. The number - 919-790-2834 - is ``for reporting oil spills and hazardous chemical spills.''
A recording answered, and it took a lot more telephoning before the Horners finally reached somebody who wanted to help them.
``We called the police, the city government, Parks and Recreation and various other agencies before we got the Coast Guard in Norfolk,'' said Joni Horner.
The new headquarters for the Coast Guard's Atlantic Strike Team, which worries about oil spills on this side of the nation, is on U.S. 17 north of Elizabeth City, about two miles from the Horners' home.
Still more phone calls were needed before the Coast Guard sent three oil spill experts - from Norfolk - to deploy a floating boom to keep the oil from spreading.
``As soon as the Marine Safety Officer at the 5th Coast Guard Headquarters in Norfolk learned of the Elizabeth City spill, the Atlantic Strike Team responded immediately,'' said Lt.j.g. Adam Tyndale, a strike team duty officer in Elizabeth City.
Tyndale said preliminary reports indicated an unknown amount of light-viscosity fuel oil had apparently spilled into the river from two tanks located on a neighbor's property.
``Then we had another scare when the Coast Guard oil spill experts came to our house and said they wanted to start filling out papers that we would have to sign to pay for cleaning up the spill,'' said Joni Horner. ``We put a stop to that right away.''
The Strike Team moved off the Horners' property on the double when Walter Horner explained:
``We don't heat with oil. We have an electric heat pump.''
KEYWORDS: OIL SPILLS by CNB