DATE: Tuesday, October 21, 1997             TAG: 9710210276

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B1   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY MIKE ABRAMS, NANCY LEWIS AND STEVE STONE, STAFF WRITERS 

                                            LENGTH:   86 lines

STORM SPAWNS CLEANUP, DEBATE AREA SURVIVES NORTHEASTER, MORE A NUISANCE THAN DAMAGING.

Hampton Roads awoke to sunshine Monday morning and shook off the remnants of weekend rain that reshaped shoreline, swamped streets and swallowed parts of Sandbridge in Virginia Beach.

Little significant damage was reported from the northeaster and the wet weather preceding it, which dumped 2.65 inches of rain at Norfolk International Airport over five days and pulled half a Sandbridge home into the Atlantic on Sunday. About 3,500 people in Virginia Beach lost power over the weekend, some for up to seven hours, a Virginia Power spokesman said.

At Ocean Park, the city has been dredging sand from the Lynnhaven Inlet as part of a fall replenishment project. The weekend storm caused some erosion of the area, although the sand work will continue through November.

The storm also flooded streets in Norfolk, forced utility workers to fix phone and power lines and prompted inspectors to check for faulty or exposed septic systems in parts of the region.

Crews in Virginia Beach focused most of their cleanup efforts Monday in Sandbridge. The city's public health department roped off the shattered house and posted signs to prevent people from entering.

``It's sad,'' said Fred Greene, president of the 900-member Sandbridge Beach Civic League. ``Maybe this house can be saved, but it is extremely sad to see somebody's hopes and dreams washed away.''

Several other nearby homes suffered driveway and landscape damage. The storm scattered planks of nail-pocked wood throughout the narrow beachfront community.

``There was erosion everywhere,'' said Phillip Roehrs, the city's coastal engineer. ``But the sand simply didn't vanish. It was just relocated.''

Parts of Sandfiddler Road, which runs north-south adjacent to the beach, crumbled under the heavy surf. Even beneath Monday's crystal clear sky, waves from the departing storm crashed over the seawall.

Roehrs said several sandbag pyramids survived their stormy test, preventing further damage to Sandfiddler or the parallel Sandpiper Road. The city has spent $160,000 in the past three years to build the blockades.

Mostly, though, Monday was about cleaning up the mess in places where natural or artificial barriers didn't work.

Bill Lehr, a retired engineer, began shoveling sand off the street in front of his Sandbridge home at about 6 a.m. He said an occasional cleanup day isn't all that bad.

``The sand and dirt and waves - that only happens a few days,'' he said. ``It's beautiful down here the rest of the time.''

In Norfolk, streets in low-lying areas of bordering rivers were swamped for the third day in a row.

But aside from leaks in roofs exposed during the deluge and water-logged vehicles, the flooding did no reported damage and resulted in no emergencies, said Jim Talbot, acting coordinator of emergency services for Norfolk.

On Monday, at high tide, the Lafayette River washed across Carroll Place from a cove on the west side of the stream, and telephone poles were the only evidence that a roadway fronted properties that border the water.

Lori Schroeder, who works for Dirt Detectives, was unloading cleaning supplies on higher ground along Carroll. She said she'd watched the water creep toward the house she was cleaning that morning and stopped work to move her car up the street. Later, she had to wade through knee-deep water to get to her car.

On the outer rim of Upper Brandon Place, a crescent that bulges out into a backwater of the Elizabeth River, brown debris snaked across lawns facing the water, showing the level waves had reached Sunday. Monday's water level was nearly the same.

The .94 inches of rainfall Sunday recorded at the Norfolk International Airport was enough to push Norfolk into the plus column for October rainfall. Normally, 1.99 inches has been recorded by this point.

The annual rainfall shortage remains, however. As of Monday morning, 28.6 inches of rain has fallen at the airport this year, nearly 9 inches below the norm of 37.4.

Owing to occasional cloudbursts Sunday, some areas had even more rain than others. Newport News, for instance, recorded 1.40 inches of rain in a 24-hour period from Sunday morning to Monday morning. In the same period, about half that - .78 of an inch - fell at Norfolk International and at Wallops Island.

The stiffest winds were felt along the coastal areas of Virginia Beach with longtime residents estimating gusts to 60 mph at times over the weekend. The winds lessened significantly inland. ILLUSTRATION: Color photo

BETH BERGMAN/The Virginian-Pilot

A house on Sandfiddler Road in the Sandbridge section of Virginia

Beach was heavily damaged from the weekend's northeaster. KEYWORDS: STORMS FLOODING

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