VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. (WAVY) — It’s been five days since a car drove off the 14th Street pier in Virginia Beach and crews are still waiting for better weather conditions before attempting to recover it.
Waiting for “perfect” conditions, however, might be too much to hope for. Officials say the wind is the biggest threat.
“My guys will be having to work, you know, basically laying on the bottom and they’ll have to work like this and then have to try to overcome any currents,” said Sgt. Brian Ricardo of the Virginia Beach Police dive team. “And just understand the normal current at the Oceanfront that we have that runs either north or south, generally, on a good day, that current’s going to be, you know, maybe half a knot.”
Half a knot equals about one mile an hour. High winds are leading to rough waves. In turn, rough waves lead to a strong current and current is what divers will be battling below the surface.
“Imagine you have a pot of water and you move the pot around,” Super Doppler 10 Meteorologist Steve Fundaro said. “The water that’s filled in there, it’s going to slosh and move around. That’s what the wind does to the waters in the Atlantic Ocean. It’s easier to hold your ground if you’re standing in, let’s say, knee-deep moving water than it is chest-deep moving water, let alone how deep it is off the end of the pier.”
Imagine divers with 90 pounds of equipment trying to keep their balance 17 feet below the surface with a fast-moving current. Since the car is also quasi on its roof, the current is also causing the car to sway, adding difficulty to the task at hand.
“I can understand people’s frustration with the system, not understanding why they couldn’t maintain,” Ricardo said, “but to tell you how dangerous it was—they broke two bridles that hold their cranes in place, and they snapped the mooring line from the car from the crane barge onto the dive boat.”
But when the time comes, Virginia Beach Police say their men are more than ready.
“All of my divers are internationally certified in public safety,” Ricardo said. “We have some of the latest and greatest equipment. We’re very fortunate in Virginia Beach. We train with all the local agencies as a regional diver response. I had some of the most seasoned senior guys that responded first thing Saturday morning to the boat.”
Ricardo added his team does not scuba in anything more than one knot of current. Lately, they’ve been seeing at least three knots or more. They’ll also likely need one or two consecutive days of calm winds for the recovery to be a success.