High Tide

Residents of the Fells Point waterfront are being urged to move their cars to high ground as a result of heavy rains that threaten to cause flooding in the area. The city Department of Transportation says it will soon begin towing vehicles remaining in the flood plan to other locations. The Downtown Partnership advises residents whose vehicles are parked below Fleet Street between Central and Avenue and Chester Street to move them. The group said residents can move their cars from the potential flood zone to parking garages at 501 S. Eden St. or the Little Italy garage at 400 S. Central Ave. Businesses are also being urged to have their employees move their cars.

A gusher from the tropics Thursday flooded streets, overwhelmed drainage systems, caused power outages and closed schools across the Baltimore area. Rain gauges had already recorded 2 to 6 inches by daybreak Thursday, and the rain just kept coming. More was expected before daybreak Friday, with double-digit storm totals possible before the precipitation ends later in the day. "There's another tropical connection that's still there, a lot of precipitation, and it looks like it has a trajectory that's heading right up this way," said Steve Zubrick, science and operations officer for the National Weather Service's forecast office in Sterling, Va. School districts throughout the area closed early Thursday, and at least one, Harford County, was planning to open two hours late on Friday.

SMITH ISLAND, Nov. 28 -- It's 7 a.m., and something both ominous and lovely, as regular as clockwork yet quite unpredictable, is beginning to happen here.The tide is coming up.Normally, that's not a big deal.Twice every 24.8 hours the pull of moon and sun, and Earth's rotation, knead and mound the oceans into great, elongated waves that break on the coasts, not as surf but as tide.So lengthy is the travel time of such waves up the Chesapeake Bay that by the time one crests at Havre de Grace, another wave -- the next high tide -- is entering the estuary's mouth.

ECOLOGICALLY appropriate, elegant, useful and cheap -- here is why this columnist gives friends who explore the Chesapeake copies of Tidelog for Christmas year after year.Bay boaters are inescapably shallow water boaters. At about a million feet long, about 100,000 feet at its widest point, with an average depth of 21 to 22 feet, the Chesapeake spreads far and wide, but exceedingly thin.Much of this estuary's essence flows from its bottom being close to its surface, from the shoal draft design of skipjacks to jungles of light-loving underwater vegetation, and the surfeits of waterfowl and soft crabs, and water-fowlers and crabbers and crab-towns -- all linked to these grassy, fecund shallows.

It's been two years now, a hundred weekly columns; more rare opportunities for acquaintance of the Chesapeake region than many folks get in a lifetime.There have been people who expressed nature so eloquently:Mitchell Byrd, a Virginian who showed me more bald eagles in an hour on the James River than you might see in the Alaskan wilderness.Halcyon days on the Choptank with that rare bird, Paul Spitzer, a free-lance Ph.D. whose study of loons is as poetic as it is significant.Rambling through the central Maryland countryside -- and through history -- with Mac King, a pioneer in Maryland's conservation movement, who passed away just a couple of weeks ago.And an eerie, fog-enshrouded voyage with I. T. Todd, the last baby born -- some 70 years ago -- in the lost community of Holland Island, now marked only by an ancient cemetery in the marsh, fast eroding into the bay.There have been sights:Legions of limulus, the horseshoe crab, crawling from the water to spawn on sand beaches beneath a full moon -- a creature and a scene so ancient they predate even the evolution of trees.

At the end of last season, Towson State women's gymnastics coach Dick Filbert bid farewell to three of the top six scorers in Tigers history and wondered aloud how his program would remain in the national picture.Senior Wendy Weaver, the Tigers' best all-around performer ever, and junior Gabby Linarducci have overcome injury and illness, respectively, to put together career-best seasons. Towson State, however, wouldn't be ranked No. 11 in the nation, breaking records every time out and seeking its sixth straight Eastern College Athletic Conference title tomorrow, if Wendy Chalmers had not transferred in from Alabama.

OCEAN CITY -- Storm-driven surf subsided today after a day of snapping at the sea wall, surging up to the boardwalk, nipping away at dunes, dune grass and fences dedicated just this week as part of a $44 million beach replenishment project.Tides surged 4 to 5 feet above normal highs yesterday afternoon, flooding much of the south end of Ocean City, the Inlet and most of the streets along the length of the bay side."It's the worst high tide since the 1962 northeaster," said Terence J. McGean, acting city engineer.

The 7-year-old has bent himself so that his chest rests atop a short piling and his feet and legs extend back across the dock proper. His head and shoulders are suspended over the murky water, and his hands deftly work a thin, cotton line upward between his fingers."

THE CONSUMER confidence index fell 9.1 points in October, to 117.3, the lowest in nearly two years and the fourth straight monthly drop, according to the Conference Board, a private research group in New York.How important is the consumer confidence index?As the holidays approach, what does the drop mean for retail sales, home sales and sales of big-ticket items?Tim MartinSenior economist, NationsBankOne way to put it into perspective is that the level it is now is close to as high as it got in the 1980s, when the economy was doing very well.

AUCKLAND, New Zealand -- Russell Coutts and Francesco de Angelis, New Zealand and Italian skippers in the America's Cup sailing competition, have the pride of their nations in their hands these days. But, with a 3-0 lead going into tomorrow's fourth race (tonight in Baltimore), Coutts clearly has the more secure grip. And, as each stands behind the wheel of a 75-foot racer here, he is backed by the support of millions of his countrymen and women. Already, both are national heroes: Coutts for outsailing veteran U.S. skipper Dennis Conner to win the Cup, 5-0, in San Diego in 1995, and giving Team New Zealand its commanding lead in the current Cup; De Angelis for getting the Italians, relative newcomers to sail match-racing, into the challenger's slot this year after winning his way past 10 crews -- five from the U.S. -- from six nations in a marathon, 202-match challengers series.