Of all the stories to come out of Beaufort County in 2018, no one event has had a greater impact on our area than Hurricane Florence. Tearing through Eastern North Carolina from Sept. 14-16, the storm left a wide swath of destruction, flooding homes and businesses and claiming more than 39 lives in North Carolina.

While points south of Beaufort County were battered by stronger winds and heavier rains, this region saw a tremendous storm surge push in water from the Pamlico sound, causing widespread flooding on both the Pamlico and Pungo rivers. At the height of the storm, the Pamlico River peaked at 8.55 feet, while the Pungo rose to 6.67 feet, leaving homes and businesses in Belhaven, Washington and Aurora underwater.

According to Chris Newkirk, Fire and Operations Chief with Beaufort County Emergency Services, a total of 1,484 people registered for individual assistance with the Federal Emergency Management Agency following the storm.

During debris cleanup, which lasted 41 days from Nov. 12 to Dec. 18, crews picked up a total of 2,888 tons of debris from roadsides in unincorporated parts of the county. Including both vegetation (2,360 tons) and construction/demolition debris (528 tons), it took crews a total of 542 loads to clear the roadsides.

While the storm has long since passed, the story of Hurricane Florence is far from over. Throughout the county, there are individuals and families who are still displaced from their homes. Some businesses, such as Belhaven’s Spoon River, are still working to reopen.

“It is very long-term and we often look at it in a short-term perspective.” Newkirk said. “When the storm has passed, about a week afterwards, we tend to focus on it and then our focus shifts somewhere else. But a lot of people don’t realize that the immediate impact of the storm and our immediate response, in the time frame of a storm, is just a blink of an eye. Most of the work is involved in the recovery piece, which can go on for years.”

Newkirk says that according to a statistic shared with him during a conference, on average, it takes FEMA seven years to completely close out a disaster, a long time for those impacted.

“Our hearts just go out for people during this entire recovery process,” Newkirk said. “We realize the strain it puts on our citizens. We have a number of employees and others working in this recovery process that were also impacted. We very much feel that and we wish we could snap our fingers and make it go back to normal, but we can’t. It’s a grueling process where we’re going to have to continue to be neighbors and help each other through this difficult time.”