Hurricane Floyd's Victims Dig Out and Dry Out
Episcopal News Service. October 6, 1999 [99-142]
(ENS) From the Caribbean to the Carolinas and beyond, millions have resumed their lives in the wake of Hurricane/Tropical Storm Floyd. With high winds and, worst of all, pounding and persistent rains, the storm soaked islands and then the East Coast in mid-September, leaving a legacy of death and injury, ruined homes and businesses, and despondence at so much lost.
And the rebuilding had barely begun when more rain -- up to 8 inches -- fell on North Carolina and tornadoes attacked the central part of the state on September 30.
Slowly, residents who were in the storms' path have begun clearing out the mud, drying out the furniture and putting their lives back together. Clearly it will take years to rebuild what one powerful storm destroyed in a matter of days.
After gathering its strength at sea, Hurricane Floyd made landfall on September 14 in the Bahamas.
While Hurricane Floyd only brushed the coast of Florida it wreaked havoc in the Bahamas according to Archdeacon I. Ranfurly Brown of the Diocese of Nassau and the Bahamas.
"The eastern edge of the 700-island commonwealth was especially hard hit," Brown told the Rev. Bob Libby during a visit to Miami, Florida. Communication between the bishop's office and much of the island diocese was cut off for several days. When they were able to survey the damage, said Brown, "It was catastrophic in many places. The only good news was that there was, miraculously, no loss of life."
"We don't need food and we don't need clothing," he stated. "What we need is money, building materials and volunteers with building skills." The Bahamian government has temporarily lifted all import taxes on building materials and immigration restrictions on skilled workers.
After spreading damage across the Bahamas, Hurricane Floyd then slammed into the Carolinas, in the U.S.
Katerina Whitley, a North Carolina resident, reported that when Thursday morning, September 16, finally arrived after a night of fear, of wondering where the massive hurricane would strike, North Carolinians breathed a collective sigh of relief. Floyd hadn't packed Hurricane Fran's wallop (1996). Houses were standing. But further north the story was different.
The hundreds of creeks and streams of the east fed by the hardest rain in memory -- 20 inches in a couple of days -- overflowed. Water spread on the cities of Kinston and Greenville, Rocky Mount and Tarboro, and roads became lakes. Cotton farms were covered, hog farms and enormous chicken sheds were invaded, and millions of animals drowned. Cars were swept away by the floodwaters.
By Monday, September 20, the water treatment plant in Greenville was contaminated. Sewage treatment plants were overflowing, animal carcasses were in the water, chemical contamination from the farms posed hazards that could not be boiled away. All schools were closed because of the floods; most were used as shelters. Thirty thousand homes, most of them belonging to people who are already poor, were lost under the muddy waters.
After three days of welcomed sunlight, the rains began again. Spirits plummeted. It was the most depressing point of the aftermath. Governor James Hunt made an unprecedented appeal to all the citizens of North Carolina. He asked the people of the western part of the state who remembered the devastation of Hurricane Hugo 10 years ago to come to the aid of the people of East Carolina. "The people of East Carolina are at the low point of their lives," he said. "We must become their high ground."
Aid poured in. Helicopters passed overhead and their whirring sounds became as comforting to the hungry and the deserted as they have been in times of war to stranded soldiers. But that was overseas, not here. Suddenly, the people of peaceful eastern North Carolina were at war with the elements. Helicopters brought people to hospitals; they plucked them from rooftops and from threatening waters and took them to shelters in other towns.
St. Thomas Episcopal Church in Ahoskie is in the northernmost part of the diocese. Betsy Overton, choir director and ECW president, explained, "We are the Red Cross Crisis Relief Center," adding spontaneously, "I am so proud of our church. We have had about 20 volunteers coming and going. Five of our own parish families have been affected by the floods."
Overton said that because of the lack of electricity she did not know immediately what was happening to the rest of the area. "I woke up this morning and started crying. I have not had proper awareness of what people go through in times of disaster. When electric power was restored I was in a state of shock. I saw a nightmare unfolding," she said.
The Church of the Advent in Williamston worshipped in the parish hall on Sunday because of the electrical hazard from water standing in the undercroft. But all the parishioners and the town considered themselves extremely fortunate. So they turned their attention to nearby Windsor, which had been an island of flooded buildings and farms for a week. As soon as the road became passable, the rector, James Horton, took $2,000 in cash together with a thousand dollars' worth of cleaning supplies to St. Thomas, Windsor, and handed it to the Rev. Barbara Chaffee for the use of the community.
Elizabeth City, like Williamston, was spared the flooding. Christ Church organized relief for others, eventually aiding the fishing areas of Belhaven, Aurora, and to the Hispanic congregation of San Mateo. Dr. Fred Moncla, a retired medical doctor, and the Rev. Jim McGee of Christ Church turned their attention to the needs of 700 people who, already poor, lost what little they had.
E.T. Malone, Jr., spent time with several parishioners at Church of the Good Shepherd, Rocky Mount. Many told him they had escaped from their homes in predawn hours as Hurricane Floyd roared overhead on September 16, wading through chest-deep waters as the flooding Tar River covered their homes.
"We had to leave our house about 3:30 a.m. on Thursday," Cindy Peck recalled, "and go to the church for refuge." She and her husband and two teenaged children were among about 15 people who sought shelter at Good Shepherd, located in downtown Rocky Mount. "Some of our neighbors escaped in boats."
Joe and Judy Gallagher and daughter, Clare, were awakened at 5:30 a.m. by their dog's barking. They got out of their house with only the clothes on their backs, watching helplessly as their cars floated away and flood waters rose to their roof. The Gallaghers were taken in by friends.
Southern Virginia, overall, was dealt a relatively small blow since the storm stayed mostly offshore and increased its forward speed as it moved northward, reported Carlyle Gravely of Newport News, Virginia. However, coastal parts of the state was lashed by 12 to 20 inches of rain and winds that gusted as high as 75 miles per hour.
This came on top of several inches of rain from the long, slow visit by Hurricane Dennis at the end of August and the beginning of September, so Floyd's rain had nowhere to go except out over the plains that make up most of the eastern part of the Diocese of Southern Virginia.
In the city of Franklin and the adjacent Isle of Wight and Southampton Counties the Blackwater River rose at least 18 feet above flood stage. The entire downtown area of the city, including over 180 businesses and many homes, was flooded, sending several hundred people to evacuation centers.
Although it later was downgraded to a tropical storm, Hurricane Floyd moved steadily up the East Coast and ravaged areas of central New Jersey, causing the worst floods ever recorded, according to NevaRae Fox.
The hardest-hit communities were in Somerset County -- Bound Brook, South Bound Brook, and Manville.
The Rev. Hewitt Johnston, interim rector of St. Paul's Church, Bound Brook, reported that the church's location on higher ground helped -- the water stopped one block from the church building. His parishioners, however, were not so lucky; some lost everything they owned or suffered extensive damage to their property.
Johnston said the faith community, including the area Episcopal churches, immediately responded to the vast needs of the community through donations of food, clothing, and money. "There has been gratifying response from the diocese and neighboring churches of all faiths," he said.
Johnston added, however, that rebuilding efforts were under way. The first step was the formation of We Will Rebuild, Inc., he said, "an outgrowth of the faith community for people in Bound Brook, South Bound Brook, and Manville who cannot get help elsewhere."
Coleen Stevens-Porcher of the Presiding Bishop's Fund for World Relief stated that an account had been established by the fund to receive donations for aid to the victims of Hurricane Floyd and that an initial emergency grant of $15,000 had been wired to the Bahamas to assist in assessing the damage.
Emergency grants of $25,000 each also have been made to the Dioceses of North Carolina, East Carolina, Southern Virginia and New Jersey.
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