Floyd's Aftermath: Floods, Rain
09-19-99 2347EDT
By ELIZABETH A. DAVIS Associated Press Writer
GREENVILLE, N.C. (AP) -- The power is intermittent, much of the county is
completely under water, roads are closed, grocery store shelves are empty and there's
little gasoline available. Can it get worse? Yes. Greenville, a city of 44,000, faces
still worse flooding when the Tar River crests Monday. And more rain could fall Monday and
Tuesday.
``Everyone is figuring out their own survival,'' Carl Campbell said Sunday as
the river inched closer to his home and neighbors tried to save their belongings from
their flooded homes.
Hurricane Floyd saturated eastern North Carolina with 20 inches of rain last
week on its way up the East Coast and flooding has virtually shut down the coastal plain
east of Raleigh.
National Guard helicopters were used to search for stranded people and to
shuttle food to stricken towns where grocery shelves are bare. Drinkable water had to be
rushed to several counties where wastewater treatment systems failed.
About 300 roads, including parts of Interstates 95 and 40, were still closed
Sunday, and 6,400 people remained in shelters.
At least 23 people in North Carolina are confirmed dead, including a Pinetops
family lost when they tried to escape their flooded home in a boat early Thursday. Others
are unaccounted for.
They are among the at least 49 people killed from the Bahamas into New England.
And beyond North Carolina, thousands of people were still without electricity and phone
service in parts of Virginia, Maryland, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and New York state.
President Clinton had declared the eastern two-thirds of North Carolina a
disaster area and planned to tour flooded areas Monday.
``It's the magnitude of it,'' Tom Ditt, a state emergency management spokesman,
said Sunday. ``You have people who live in areas that have never flooded, and now their
houses are underwater.''
The Tar River at Tarboro, about 20 miles northwest of Greenville, was already
estimated at 43 feet and still rising. The old record for the city was just 34 feet, set
back in 1919.
Ominously, a tropical depression in the Gulf of Mexico slogged northward Sunday,
with a possibility of strengthening into Tropical Storm Harvey. However, forecasters were
optimistic it would bring only a half-inch or less of rain to the region.
``More rain on top of what they've already experienced just compounds the
problems and misery they've already been through,'' said state emergency management
spokesman Tom Hegele.
At Tarboro High School in Edgecombe County, where about 3,000 people took
shelter, volunteer Hattie Stocks called the situation desperate.
``We have no (running) water at all, and the water's still rising some. And I
can't tell you how many dead we have. They're still finding bodies floating,'' she said.
In Pitt County, where Greenville is located, and nearby Edgecombe, all water was
undrinkable. Some shelters had low supplies of food and water and no running water or
electricity.
Grocery stores in Nash, Edgecombe, Bertie and Pitt counties were running low,
and a Berlin-style airlift was set up to deliver food and water.
Greenville was flooded along a 3-mile-long stretch of the Tar River. Only the
roofs of some two-story, riverside apartment buildings showed above the water. One
apartment roof had a sign painted on a sheet: ``Send beer. Hi Mom.''
Also flooded was the city's Town Commons park, where water stood almost to the
top of the amphitheater and street lights.
``People throw the Frisbee on a normal day, drink beer. Have a happy life,''
said Sgt. Conley Mangum of the state Wildlife Resources Commission. ``Not today.''
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