Officials said the storm crossed Virginia Beach Sunday evening, bringing a confirmed tornado and damaging 50 to 100 homes.
City Manager Patrick Duhaney announced state of emergency On Sunday night the coastal municipality sought to shelter people whose homes were damaged and was ready to send its workers to pick up debris from public streets on Monday morning.
Mike Montefusco, a forecaster with the National Weather Service in Wakefield, said the hurricane passed through the Fort Story area on the northeastern Virginia coast shortly before 6 p.m.
Monday’s survey will confirm the exact track of the cyclone.
Although there was damage to homes in the area, there were no immediate injuries.
Emergency crews patrolled the area by bus and took residents who needed transportation to a shelter set up at the Great Neck Recreation Center, where five people were staying as of 9 p.m. Sunday, said Tiffany Russell, a spokeswoman for the city of Virginia Beach. The city said some residents reported gas leaks.
A number of boats were reported damaged after breaking their rigging and capsizing, Ms Russell said. The city worked with the U.S. Coast Guard and the Port of Virginia Maritime Incident Response Team to assess the impact and recover the boats.
The Virginia Beach Fire Department responded to “calls of major storm damage to multiple homes” in the Great Neck area, The department said on Twitter.
The Hampton Roads area, which includes Virginia Beach, had more than 1,000 outages as of 9:30 p.m. Sunday, up from more than 14,000 the previous day, said Bonita Billingsley Harris, spokeswoman for Dominion Energy.
Virginia Beach, in particular, accounted for about 470 of those outages. On Sunday night, crews were unable to repair the tornado site as trees blocked the road.
Most power was expected to be restored by late Sunday night, but some outages in Virginia Beach could continue into Monday, he said.
More than 500 electric customers in North Carolina were without service Sunday night, Ms. Billingsley Harris said.
The city canceled a festival planned for Sunday evening, which was scheduled to be attended by representatives from the National Weather Service.
Weather Service officials remained at the festival site to help handle the storm response, Ms. Russell said.
“Nobody wants to make this call, but we can’t predict or negotiate the weather tonight,” said City Manager Patrick Duhaney. said in a statement on Facebook Announcing the cancellation. “Above all it is our responsibility to ensure public safety.”
Victor Manuel Ramos Contributed report.
