For One Town, Floyd’s Misery Only Worsens

Residents of this town founded by ex-slaves glumly surveyed their wrecked homes Thursday for the first time in the two weeks since Hurricane Floyd’s flood waters swallowed the town. Some found the damage too great to bear.

Robert and Callie Suggs said goodbye to the concrete, green-and-white home they built 34 years ago and where they raised their six children. An inch-wide crack girdled the foundation.

“All my life, this was a gathering place for the family,” Callie Suggs said. “I would cook something every Sunday, and we would come here after church and pray together and eat together. I’m really going to miss that. I guess someday it’ll be the same, but I don’t know where.”

After 8 inches of rain this week made the misery worse in flood-stunned eastern North Carolina, Thursday was dry and weather forecasters predicted more of the same for several days.

“Slowly but surely it’s drying out,” said National Guard Master Sgt. Larry Jones in Goldsboro, where this week’s rain ruptured a dam and flooded the downtown.

The Tar and Neuse rivers remained well above flood stage and were due to crest over the next two days.

“It’s still going to be a dangerous place out there for the next couple of weeks,” warned Jonathan Blaes, a National Weather Service forecaster in Raleigh.

Floyd, which brought 20 inches of rain to eastern North Carolina, is expected to surpass Hurricane Fran, which did $6 billion in damage in 1996, as the state’s costliest natural disaster.

Government relief funds began flowing toward North Carolina on Thursday. Vice President Al Gore announced $20.3 million in federal emergency funds would help families in low-income areas rebuild.

James Lee Witt, director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, and EPA administrator Carol Browner toured the flooded region Thursday.

When asked to name the most important environmental lesson learned from Floyd, Browner said, “Stay out of flood plains.”