Floyd-Stricken N. Carolina County Reopens Schools

Nearly three weeks after Hurricane Floyd, thousands of students returned to class Monday in North Carolina’s hardest-hit county. At one school, more than 100 evacuees were still living in the gym.

Physical education classes had to move outdoors and into the band and weight rooms at Tarboro High, where the gym was one of the last shelters open in Edgecombe County.

“You can’t get away from it anywhere in Tarboro,” said senior Jonathan Kirkland, whose home was spared. “I have so much, and these people have nothing.”

Monday was the first day Edgecombe County’s 8,000 students had set foot in the classroom since Sept. 15, the day before Floyd came ashore and drenched eastern North Carolina with more than 20 inches of rain, causing the worst flooding in state history.

Floyd has been blamed for at least 48 deaths in North Carolina. The high water drove more than 10,000 people into shelters and destroyed 3,680 homes. Floyd is expected to surpass Hurricane Fran, which caused $6 billion in damage in 1996, as the state’s costliest natural disaster.

Businesses are reopening one by one, and the Tar and Neuse rivers are expected to drop below flood stage this week for the first time since the storm. Many people who were in shelters have been able to go home or find other places to stay.

But the misery is far from over. The Salvation Army said its disaster recovery center in Greenville ran short on food and volunteers and could open only for a half-day Monday. The relief organization said it has dispensed $4.5 million in meals, goods and services in Floyd’s aftermath.

Two of the county’s 14 schools did not reopen; they were destroyed by flood waters. Their 550 students will attend classes in trailers at other schools.

The county said 90% of its students were in school Monday.

At Tarboro High, the enormity of the disaster was hitting home.

“I never thought about it being this real,” Kirkland said, “until these people I’ve known 15 years say they’ve lost everything.”