For All of Its Bluster, Hurricane Exits Meekly

Like the stereotypical Southern belle, Hurricane Bonnie turned out to be an incorrigible flirt, causing a fuss, getting everyone’s attention, but dancing away Thursday before doing too much real harm.

After days of ominous warnings and dire forecasts, the storm did douse the Carolina coast with as much as 10 inches of rain in some places, causing alarm and widespread flood warnings, knocking out power and curtailing the tourist season. But no one was killed or injured, and property losses were far less than feared.

“We’re mighty lucky,” said Woody Maness, spokesman for emergency services in Craven County, N.C. “We were expecting this storm to be a whole lot worse than what it was.”

By Thursday afternoon, the enormous hurricane, which packed winds of 115 mph and caused treacherous surf all along the Eastern seaboard, was downgraded to a tropical storm, with wind gusts of only 65 mph. By late afternoon, the storm was following a northeastern trajectory, toward the fragile barrier islands of the North Carolina Outer Banks, then headed over the southeast corner of Virginia and away to sea.

In Virginia Beach, Va., residents were so blase about the approaching tail end of a weakened Bonnie that they harassed Shirley Charles into keeping her nail salon open.

“It’s amazing how many people put nails at the forefront of their lives,” Charles said. “So many times people don’t want to take these storm conditions seriously.”

But residents seemed to be taking their cue from officials, who were taking the storm much less seriously themselves. “We could not be more relieved this morning,” said Richard Moore, the secretary of crime control and public safety for North Carolina.

Even in the Outer Banks, where officials had fretted about delicate beaches and beloved landmarks like the Cape Hatteras lighthouse, Bonnie’s effects were expected to fall short of doomsday predictions. Dan Johnson, a real estate salesman on Hatteras Island, said the storm wasn’t bad by local standards, which was why he chose to ride it out rather than evacuate with hundreds of thousands of others.

“The power has gone out a couple of times, and the cable went out,” he said. “I’m taking care of stuff I saved for a rainy day. Sorting old boxes of photos, letters, cards, things I never took time to look at. This will soon pass.”

President Clinton declared 10 counties of North Carolina a disaster area, freeing federal money to mop up after Bonnie’s wrath. And North Carolina Gov. James B. Hunt Jr. called out 800 National Guard troops and 2,000 prisoners to help in the cleanup effort. But less federal money and cleanup should be needed than after other major storms.

“I live on the water and I just went down to my house, and there was not much damage,” said David Paynter, spokesman for New Hanover County, N.C., which endured nonstop rain for more than 24 hours.

Paynter also toured Wilmington, N.C., where Bonnie first made landfall Tuesday, and was surprised at how many trees and houses survived intact.

“I’ve not seen a house with a large tree on it,” he said. “And that’s because a lot of the trees that came down during Fran and Bertha aren’t there anymore.”

Indeed, Hurricanes Fran and Bertha, which devastated this area two years ago, causing $5.2 billion in damage and 24 deaths, left relatively little mischief for Bonnie’s winds to do. Those storms swept away and uprooted anything loose or unsturdy, while leaving everyone better prepared for the next disaster.

Officials praised residents for heeding warnings about Bonnie. Nearly 17,000 people in the path of the storm dutifully filled shelters during the week. With rain letting up and winds dying down, most refugees were returning home Thursday, glad to have been safe rather than sorry.

“Happy to go home,” said Cheryl Tompkins, a resident of Duffyville, who spent the week with her two young sons at H. J. MacDonald Middle School here. “I have to say, last night was rough.”

Truly, Bonnie made a racket Wednesday night and Thursday morning on the central Carolina coast, unleashing terrifying winds, combing trees back like strands of hair, peeling back roofs, cutting off phone service and electrical power to nearly 1.2 million customers. Some boats were tossed ashore overnight like bathtub toys in New Bern, though many boat owners wisely moved upriver well in advance of the storm.

Several beaches south of Wilmington took a hard hit. Holden and Caswell beaches were swamped, as was Sunset Beach. To the north, two fishing piers around Morehead City were badly damaged. Also, the storm spawned tornadoes in Beaufort and Tyrell counties of North Carolina.

But power had been restored to all but 248,000 customers by Thursday, and things were getting back to normal by nightfall. Grim-faced newscasters, after looking like undertakers for days, were able to joke about the disaster that wasn’t.

“Fran 3, New Bern 0,” read a jaunty sign in the window at Ratty’s, a New Bern gift shop in the historic district. “New Bern 2, Bonnie 0.”

But below the sign was another, hastily scribbled Thursday morning:

“Danielle, go to h--l.”

Hurricane Danielle, about 300 miles northeast of the Virgin Islands, was said to be moving west about 18 miles an hour, packing winds of 90 miles an hour and behaving much as Bonnie did in the early going.

Moehringer reported from New Bern and Stanley from Virginia Beach, Va.