Storm Victims Begin Cleanup; 6 Still Missing

Their neighborhoods in tatters but their resolve largely intact, residents of hurricane-battered areas turned Sunday to cleaning up formidable messes, watching swollen waterways and adjusting to life without electricity. At least six people were still reported missing.

Four electric utilities reported a total of 596,000 customers still without power. Water, and especially ice, remained crucial commodities and lines formed at stores offering supplies--many free.

With many areas flooded with sewage-tainted water and thousands of trees on the ground, life was hardly returning to normal. But, on a muggy, torrid day, people ventured out with rakes and chain saws, and utility and municipal crews and private tree-clearing contractors plied the streets and back roads.

“We’re so sophisticated in this age of technology and science, but Mother Nature comes through and we’re back to 400 BC,” said Linda Daigle, clearing foliage from her lawn Sunday.

Hurricane Fran slammed into coastal North Carolina late Thursday and turned north, cutting a capricious swath of destruction as far inland as Raleigh and Winston-Salem before flooding Virginia and West Virginia with heavy rain.

The storm and its aftereffects killed at least 22 people, mostly as the result of falling trees, flooding and traffic accidents. The Federal Emergency Management Agency had declared 34 North Carolina counties disaster areas as of Sunday afternoon.

A 60-member team on Topsail Island, in the hardest-hit coastal region, searched for five people reported missing, emergency officials said. One person was reported missing in Raleigh.

More flooding bore down on the coast Sunday in the form of runoff from rains that drenched inland communities. City streets in Wilmington were flooded again.

On evacuated Topsail Beach, state Emergency Management spokesman Tom Hegele described a scene of devastation: trailers stacked atop each other, collapsed houses, cars buried in sand.

Meanwhile, Tropical Storm Hortense threatened flash floods and landslides on Puerto Rico and the U.S. and British Virgin Islands but had failed to reach hurricane strength, the National Hurricane Center said.

Hortense’s maximum sustained winds were 55 mph, down from 60 mph, and little change in strength was expected in the next 24 hours.