In Virginia Beach, some plucky souls venture outside

VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. – With 15-foot high waves and 50-mph wind gusts, Tropical Storm Hermine rolled up the Virginian coast Saturday morning, right around high tide. But the storm’s force didn’t deter dozens of curious onlookers from streaming onto the boardwalk and beach here.

“I think everyone just wants to be able to say ‘I was out in the storm,’ ” Kim Kitts, 43, of Christiansburg, Va., said, watching several people brave the wind-whipped rain from the safety of a hotel breakfast nook inside.

Kitts and her friend, Hannah Cury, 35, drove over from southwestern Virginia late Friday for the annual Rock ‘n’ Roll half marathon race Sunday. Race officials canceled Saturday’s kickoff event, Mile on the Sand, because of the storm, but several runners could be spotted on the beach and boardwalk Saturday morning, some with their race bibs on.

Kitts and Cury said they planned to spend most of the day in their hotel room. They’ve done other races in Virginia Beach spanning the weather spectrum from pleasant, to hot and humid, to cold, rainy and windy.

“You just never know what you’re going to get with Mother Nature,” Kitts said.  

Mike Seidel, a longtime Weather Channel meteorologist, spent his morning reporting live from the beach, often having just minutes between live video shots. On a rare break inside, a sopping wet Seidel, with sea foam still visible on his bright blue jacket and sandals caked with sand, talked about what it’s like to be right in the thick of the storm.

“You’re getting whipped by 50-mph winds,” said Seidel, who’s been on the road for 10 days and covered Hermine when it was merely an unnamed cluster of disorganized thunderstorms in the Atlantic. “My back is kind of to the elements, but if you turn around, that’s why you’ve got to wear these,” he adds, pulling out safety glasses – the only way he can see. The sand is blowing so hard it would get in his eyes. After just a few minutes inside, Seidel rushes back out to continue reporting, leaving a thoroughly soaked seat in his wake.

Watching a few of the latest weather gawkers try to make their way onto the beach, including a man fighting a losing battle with an umbrella for several minutes, Kitts and Cury remarked how crazy it was so many people were venturing outside.

“But you know we’ll be going out there later,” Cury said with a laugh.