To be honest (and it's certainly a shame), my memories of Floyd aren't all that strong ... and certainly not as vivid as the memories of 9/11 that I blogged about over the weekend.
When Floyd rolled through, I was just a 15-year-old high school punk living at home in Wilson. I can remember sleeping in a downstairs bedroom the night the storm made landfall, though. My bedroom was upstairs, but since my childhood home has a TON of trees all around it, my family figured it'd be safer to stay in the downstairs bedrooms that were also a bit farther away from the trees.
There was a lot of rain and wind that night, but otherwise I remember sleeping pretty well ... and waking up thinking that the storm seemed rather unremarkable. I think a section of the fence in our backyard was knocked down ... and in one of the hurricanes of the late 90s, a fallen tree demolished the house across the street from ours (can't remember if it was Floyd, though).
I also remember some of the flooding in Wilson, especially around Toisnot Park. There aren't any major rivers in Wilson County, so we were better off than some ... but I know that things sure were bad in some parts of the county and the town. There was a lot of flooding over near the Rec, too.
I think there was some flooding at my house, as well ... but incredibly, it was nothing compared to the flooding that comes these days at the hands of even an hours-long rainfall.
As you can tell, this is where my memory starts to get fuzzy. No doubt all of the aforementioned TV stations and newspapers have been running stories involving people's recollections of the storm all week ... and I wanted to share one with you guys that I just happened to read.
It interests me because it's from someone who was working at WNCT at the time ... and I always enjoy hearing how folks in TV recount their experiences covering the events that change people's lives.
As you'll read, covering the storm also changed Chad Tucker's life. Chad now works at WGHP in the Triad and I've had the good fortune of getting to know him lately. Like me, his TV career started at Channel 9 ... and it sounds like Floyd may have affected the trajectory of his career.
Read his thoughts (which he has allowed me to share with you) and then leave me your recollections of Hurricane Floyd!
"I Can Still Hear the Storm," by Chad Tucker ...
In September of 1999 I was finishing my senior year studying journalism at East Carolina University in Greenville. Outside the classroom my part-time job as a news producer for CBS affiliate WNCT-TV put me in the middle of one of North Carolina’s biggest news events of the 20th century. It was the perfect classroom. It was the point I learned the truth behind my calling.
Hurricane Floyd, born off the coast of Africa made its way to North Carolina on September 16, 1999. It’s a day I will never forget. It’s a day that changed me.
The night the storm came I went to work helping the TV station produce 24-7 hurricane coverage. Late in the evening I went home to my apartment with rain so thick the typical 10 minute drive became an hour. To this day, I can still hear the storm. The constant rain and roar of Hurricane Floyd created an unsettling feeling inside of me as it passed in the night. While the rain found its way through the modern windows of my apartment, the constant wind – in an odd way – helped put me at rest. I found some sleep that night. But with dawn light and the storm still howling -- to this day I can still see the trees outside my bedroom window – bent by the constant wind. Hurricane Floyd was about to end, but hell was just beginning.
By mid morning – the water began to rise. My phone rang with my boss saying people are clinging to their roofs. I went to work.
The monster made landfall near Cape Fear as a category 2 hurricane, passing north over Eastern North Carolina dumping nearly 17 inches of rain. That’s 17 inches of rain on top of 15 inches Hurricane Dennis dumped just weeks before. It was just too much rain for the rivers of Eastern North Carolina, including the Tar River that flowed through Greenville.
For more than a week classrooms at ECU sat empty while students around campus fought to save what they owned. The Tar River came out of its banks, cresting 24 feet above flood stage. The river flooded thousands of student apartments, homes and their cars. Greenville became an island with no way in or out. Water was everywhere. Highways now rivers...
I worked all day in the newsroom gathering information. Our station became a lifeline. For those without power and could not see us, radio stations broadcasted our signal. I worked many hours making calls on where roads were out, where shelters were open and answering the back door. The first time I opened the back door a family stood soak and wet. The family lost everything and just wanted to know where to go. The moment was raw and real.
I never took time to stop and take it all in. I heard the reports and passed them along; “a woman found dead floating in her home, dead cattle, hogs everywhere, – a couple trapped on their roof waiting for the coast guard helicopter.” But the moment that captured my soul – making me stop – was a call from a crying EMS worker in Pinetops. I answered the phone and I can still hear his broken voice. “Yaw need to report this… (As he paused, I could hear him wiping the tears) we just found an entire family dead, – yes – an entire family.” The family of six members died when their boat capsized while trying to leave their flooded home. I wrote down the information and walked to the studio giving it to the anchor on the air. He read it, looked at me and shook his head before turning to the camera to repeat what I had written.
For days I worked the newsroom phones, helped with food drives and fundraisers. I had no water or power at my apartment for a week, but I had my life. I had a lot to be thankful for. 52 people died including one ECU student caught in the creek-turned-river at the bottom of College Hill. I and my classmates returned to class a week after the storm passed. We all sat in class silent, except for a girl in the back weeping. She lost everything including her text book.
After graduation I turned to the other side of the camera, reporting for a few years the news of Eastern North Carolina for WNCT. Many of those reports dealt with the human spirit rising above it all as people rebuilt their lives and their communities.
On this day – I look back more appreciative of life, living and a part of our great state that lives perseverance – becoming better and stronger from a storm. A storm, I can still hear.
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