Bertha Hits N.C. Outer Banks, Kicks Up Wave of Evacuees

Tens of thousands of people, many of them vacationers, fled inland Thursday as the hungry wind of Hurricane Bertha howled across the Outer Banks and threatened to devour Cape Fear and nearby beach towns to the north and west.

Gov. James B. Hunt Jr. declared an emergency in 34 coastal counties, giving the state authority to enforce evacuation orders, call out the National Guard and remove any local officials who refused to cooperate. Restaurants closed. So did stores. Beach cottages emptied, and so did campgrounds.

At 8 p.m. EDT, Bertha was 245 miles south of Wilmington, churning northwest at about 10 mph. It packed sustained winds of 80 mph, down from 105 mph earlier in the day. The National Hurricane Center in Miami, Fla., said the eye of the storm would cross land on Cape Fear shortly after daybreak today.

In its path northwest from the Caribbean, Bertha has left seven dead: one in Florida and the other six in Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands and St. Martin. In addition, a 4-year-old boy was killed and his mother was injured in the storm-related crash of an Air Force F-16 jet fighter.

The plane, being evacuated from Shaw Air Force Base, S.C., to Eglin Air Force Base, Fla., to avoid the hurricane, suffered engine failure Thursday about 20 miles north of Pensacola, Fla. It crashed into the child’s home. The pilot ejected safely into a tree but the house exploded into flames.

As wind with the force of a tropical storm reached the Outer Banks, residents and tourists alike fled along a honeycomb of highways that stitch the city of Wilmington, population 55,000, to seaside communities stretching from Calabash through Wrightsville Beach.

Many of the businesses in Wilmington took no chances. With the first gusts of wind, employees taped the windows at a Circuit City store and a nearby restaurant called Mr. Chopstix.

In all, the coastal communities ordered more than 100,000 people to leave for higher ground. At the town of Southport, across a bay from Cape Fear, residents carefully taped their windows before abandoning scores of homes and house trailers.

At a new townhouse development near Orton, Charles LaGrue stood shirtless in the muggy evening air. In one hand, he held a long-necked beer bottle. “I’m staying,” he declared boldly. “We laid in some supplies.”

He glanced at his drink. “I’m not too worried.”

Preservationists, however, were concerned about what the storm would do to North Carolina’s oldest lighthouse, on Bald Head Island near Cape Fear, at the mouth of the Cape Fear River.

The lighthouse, called Old Baldy, has guided boat pilots for more than 150 years as they neared the ocean. Restored and relighted in 1988 after 20 years of darkness, Old Baldy has weathered three wars, countless storms and many years of neglect.

Worry spread from the coastal region to cities and towns far inland. “Bertha is a very large hurricane that will impact a tremendous area,” Gov. Hunt said in a televised warning to everyone in North Carolina. “It looks like it’s coming straight at us.”

The area of impact was expected to be so large that South Carolina Gov. David Beasley declared an emergency in two of the counties in his state as well. He activated two National Guard military police units to help state and local police handle evacuations and discourage any looting.

In addition to the jet from Shaw Air Force Base, the military ordered its aircraft to be evacuated from airfields scattered throughout the east, from Pennsylvania to the Florida Panhandle. The Navy ordered its ships to put to sea to avoid damage from docks and other stationary objects.

In Savannah, Ga., officials at the Olympic yachting venue kept their boats out of the water for a second day. Amtrak canceled or curtailed southbound train service along its East Coast tracks.

Jerry Jarrell, deputy director of the National Hurricane Center, said that although Bertha was diminishing in force, “this is a huge hurricane, so it’s going to create a strong surge and large waves. It can do real damage.”

Winds of hurricane force--74 mph at minimum--extended 115 miles east of the eye of the storm, Jarrell said. “The whole storm is the size of Georgia.”

With rainfall totals expected to climb to as much as 8 inches, Jarrell warned, “the real threat may be as a rainmaker over the mountains” as the remnants of the hurricane push inland. “Rain in the mountains,” he said, “could be a killer.”

As the storm lost punch, Jarrell anticipated a letdown, especially among those who boarded up, fled or abandoned vacations to heed evacuation orders. “We will probably burn some credibility on this one,” Jarrell said. “But when the warnings go up, governors have to respond.”

Many of those feeling the letdown were in Florida, where evacuation orders were lifted earlier in the day.

A half-million people had been urged to leave six coastal counties. One among the many who did not evacuate was killed. He was William Russell Hughson, 28, of Indianapolis. Hughson was in Florida visiting relatives. Hurricane swells carried him out to sea.

Hughson’s 16-year-old brother was rescued.

Of the six additional deaths blamed directly on Bertha, three were in Puerto Rico, one was in the U.S. Virgin Islands and one was in St. Martin. The sixth was a passenger who fell from a boat off the St. Martin coast. Another boat with 42 people aboard still was reported missing off Puerto Rico.

Many institutions in Florida had taken the evacuation orders seriously. Officials emptied hospitals and nursing homes and took their patients into shelters.

Thousands of motorists had jammed gasoline stations and tanked up to drive inland. Most drove west and south, away from Bertha’s predicted path of peril. They came back home happily.

At Daytona Beach, Fla., Anna Garifola, 74, returned to her home after spending a night inland with one of her daughters.

“When they said evacuate, I left,” she told the Associated Press. “I took my birds and went.”

But returning did not mean an end to her worry. Garifola has another daughter. She lives in North Carolina.

Bornemeier, a Times staff writer, reported from Southport; Clary, a Times special correspondent, reported from Miami. Researcher Edith Stanley in Atlanta and staff writers Mark Lacey in Virginia Beach, Va., and Richard E. Meyer in Los Angeles also contributed to this story.