Bonnie Gains Strength, Reborn as Hurricane

Hurricane Bonnie looked at first like an incorrigible Southern flirt--causing a fuss, getting everyone’s attention, then dancing away before doing much real harm.

But late Thursday night she turned fickle, gathering strength and slamming into southeast Virginia with a late ferocity few expected.

Trees were uprooted throughout the Norfolk, Va., area, and 1 million people were left without power. By midnight, the storm was raging in full force as a hurricane again, and officials were dreading what damage they might discover with first light today.

As Thursday dawned, Bonnie was being called a bust. Despite torrential rain and scattered flooding, no one was killed or injured, and property losses were limited. The region was heaving sighs of relief.

“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.”

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. Jim Hunt called out 800 National Guard troops and 2,000 prisoners to help in the cleanup effort. But less federal money and cleanup looked to be needed than after other major storms.

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

Paynter also toured the city of Wilmington, 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 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 Carolina residents for heeding warnings about Bonnie. Nearly 17,000 people in the path of the storm dutifully filled shelters during the week, which may have accounted for the lack of serious injuries. 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, N.C. 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 in the central Carolina coast, unleashing terrifying winds, combing trees back like strands of hair, peeling away 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 boaters moved their boats upriver well in advance of the storm--including owners of a splendid fishing trawler that reportedly once belonged to Ernest Hemingway.

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 370 miles northeast of San Juan, Puerto Rico Thursday night, was moving west at about 17 mph, packing winds of 90 miles an hour and behaving much as Bonnie did in the early going. The storm was expected to strengthen in the next few days.

But Thursday afternoon, Danielle was a distant worry and Bonnie was being downgraded from a hurricane to a tropical storm. Weakened and defeated, the sluggish, churning wheel of clouds and wind seemed to be following a projected northeastern trajectory, toward the barrier islands of North Carolina’s Outer Banks, then over the southeast corner of Virginia, then harmlessly away to sea.

Or so it was hoped.

In Virginia Beach, residents were so blase about the approaching tail end of 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.”

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