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Essential personnel only at 6 Va. bases

NORFOLK, Va. — The Navy’s bases in the Hampton Roads area are down to essential personnel only Thursday because a nor’easter is hitting the area hard.

“There’s no damage reported at this time, but we are sandbagging low-lying areas in anticipation of a higher-than-normal tides later today [Thursday],” said Beth Baker, spokeswoman for Navy Region Mid-Atlantic, which oversees operations at six installations in the Southeast Virginia Tidewater region.

Affected bases are Naval Station Norfolk; Naval Support Activity Norfolk; Joint Expeditionary Base Little Creek/Fort Story; Naval Air Station Oceana, which includes Dam Neck; Naval Weapons Station Yorktown; and Naval Support Activity Northwest Annex in Chesapeake, Va.

The storm isn’t over, and there is a possibility the essential-personnel-only edict could extend into Friday.

“The local weather forecasts say this will get worse … into [Thursday night],” Baker said. “We are watching it carefully, but no decisions have been made.

The National Weather Service’s local office in Wakefield, Va., says the flooding in the area could rival what happened in the wake of Hurricane Isabel in October 2003, when tides peaked at 7.9 feet above normal.

“Our current projections have this tide peaking at 7.8 to 7.9 [feet], so it could very well rival Isabel in that way,” said Brian Hurley of Wakefield NWS office. “But we’re having tropical-storm-level winds, not hurricane-level, with gusts of up to 60 miles per hour on the coast.”

Hurley said the tidal dangers extend into Friday morning’s high tide as well, but that the winds and rain — which could total up to 10 inches in the next 24 hours — will begin to dissipate Friday.

According to the Web site of power utility Dominion Virginia, more than 10,000 Dominion customers were without power in the Hampton Roads area, with fewer than 300 without power in northeastern North Carolina.