What do the Bahamas and the Eastern half of North Carolina have in common? Water.

Two weeks after massive Hurricane Floyd swept up the East Coast [TLC, Oct. 10], flooding continued and the total extent of damage was not yet known. This is particularly true in the Diocese of East Carolina, where rivers were still above flood stage in most areas as September came to a close.

In the week since TLC's last report, the diocese has been in touch with "almost everyone," said canon to the ordinary Phil Craig. St. Thomas' in Windsor, he said, was severely damaged. Overall, "We were very fortunate in terms of physical plants."

As of Sept. 29, more than 40 persons were known dead in North Carolina as a result of the flooding, with more unaccounted for or missing.

The dioceses of East Carolina and North Carolina share a concern for their joint ministry to migrant farm workers.

"The agriculture season is over," Canon Craig said, adding that workers in some camps are just trying to get on buses back to Mexico. "They're just starving to death. We're also concerned that some camps are not yet accounted for. We don't know the loss in terms of human life." Thousands of migrant workers in North Carolina harvest primarily tobacco, cotton, cucumbers and tomatoes.

The Rev. Kathleen Awbrey, Christian social ministries coordinator for the Diocese of North Carolina, said, "There is no work, no work no pay, no pay no food." The diocese had sent truckloads of supplies to migrant camps in the Newton Grove area and planned to send more.

Canon Craig said that from an ecological point of view it would take North Carolina years to recover from the flooding in yards of pork and poultry producers. More than 100,000 pigs died in the floodwaters and overflowing sludge ponds mixed with rising river water and flowed downstream.

"Pretty well," was Ms. Awbrey's first response to how people in flooded areas of Diocese of North Carolina were doing. Then she said, "It depends on the perspective ... when all your worldly possessions are piled up in the street ... and now more rain all week has not helped."

Ms. Awbrey said that people in Rocky Mount were beginning to get into their homes and get cleaned out, as were some in Tarboro. But there were still people in shelters. Canon Craig said there was still flooding "pretty much everywhere" in East Carolina, including Kinston, where the diocesan offices are located.

While the Diocese of Southeast Florida was spared Floyd's wrath, its companion Diocese of Nassau and the Bahamas suffered, in some places, "physical devastation," according to the Ven. Ranfurley Brown, Archdeacon of the East Central Bahamas. No lives were lost.

The hardest hit areas were Eleuthera, Cat Island, Abaco and San Salvador, which were in the direct path of Hurricane Floyd. Most of the damage was caused by the storm surge, 30 feet at Governor's Harbour, Eleuthera. Crops were destroyed in the coastal farming communities of Cat Island and the well water is contaminated with salt. Many Anglican churches were damaged and -because of age or previous storm damage - were not insured to replacement value.

"It's supposed to stop raining tonight (Sept. 29)," Ms. Awbrey said, in beleaguered North Carolina, "I hope it does."

Mary Cox contributed to this article