$1 Billion in N. Carolina Storm Losses Seen

Damage estimates mounted Thursday from Hurricane Fran’s deadly rampage across North Carolina last week, with the state’s insurance commissioner predicting that claims would hit $1 billion by the weekend.

Although winds were strongest at the coast, inland agricultural areas were hardest hit by flooding and rain. So far, farm losses of all sorts have reached $616 million, including $341 million in crop and livestock damage, according to the state’s Department of Agriculture. Of that, tobacco bore the brunt of the losses, with $185 million in crop damage.

Many inland communities remain without electricity and water a week after the hurricane passed through. Up to 141,000 homes and businesses in the state were still without power. Thirty-four deaths, including 21 in North Carolina, have been blamed on the storm.

State Insurance Commissioner Jim Long said insurance companies have received claims for $723.4 million in property damage. “We’re going to hit $1 billion by the weekend, no question about it,” Long said.

Meanwhile, rain continued to feed flood waters around the state. The Neuse River was expected to crest 13 feet above its banks, just shy of a record set in 1929. Emergency crews monitored the swollen currents and told riverside residents near Goldsboro, N.C., to prepare to flee.

Flood waters in the town, 50 miles east of Raleigh, had already engulfed a trailer park, risen at least a foot above the doors of most homes and unearthed coffins at a cemetery.

The losses from the hurricane, which North Carolinians call the worst to hit the state in 40 years, will likely drive up the price of tobacco, which is already high because of a worldwide shortage, said A. Blake Brown, an economist at North Carolina State University.

President Clinton has declared the 43 hardest-hit counties in the state to be federal disaster areas. On Sunday he amended his disaster declaration to allow farmers in all 100 North Carolina counties to qualify for federal assistance.

“The last time I saw a storm this bad was Hazel in 1954,” said Tommy Emerson, president of the North Central Farm Credit cooperative in Greensboro. “The primary crop that it affected is tobacco. . . . A lot of the crop was drowned. The leaves are dying and falling off.”

Fran’s heavy rains and winds compounded problems caused just weeks earlier when Hurricane Bertha followed a nearly identical path through the state.

“Our corn crop got devastated in the first storm,” said Jess Morton, an agricultural extension agent in Onslow County in southeastern North Carolina. Morton estimated the two storms caused $95 million in damage in his county alone.

In addition to the Neuse River, other major rivers that spilled over their banks in eastern North Carolina include the Roanoke, Northeast Cape Fear and Tar.

If there was any good news, it was that Hurricane Hortense was likely to bypass the area after killing at least 14 people in Puerto Rico and bringing heavy rain to other islands in the Caribbean.

The hurricane, with maximum sustained winds of 140 mph, was centered about 645 miles south-southeast of Cape Hatteras, N.C., Thursday night. It was moving north at 15 mph, with hurricane-force winds extending outward up to 70 miles from its center.

Heavy surf from the storm could reach southeastern U.S. shores by today and pose a further threat to battered beaches. But the National Weather Service said the hurricane itself should head north toward New England.