US hurricane leaves lasting marks

By Richard Allen Greene
BBC News, Rocky Mount

Rachel Ervin still sweats every time she hears a hurricane is heading towards her home in the American south.

Rachel Ervin saved family photos as the floodwaters rose

"I can't be still - I pace the floor. I'm really, really frightened," she said, her voice trembling slightly as she talked about her house flooding.

Mrs Ervin shares an experience with the people of New Orleans, but she lives more than 900 miles (1,440km) away from the city that became part of a lake when Hurricane Katrina hit last summer.

Her home is in North Carolina, her hurricane was called Floyd, and her experience suggests the people hit by Katrina may have a longer road to recovery than they realise.

Rocky Mount, North Carolina, was essentially the Ground Zero of Hurricane Floyd in 1999, one of the largest and most destructive storms ever to hit the United States.

More than 2.5 million people from Florida to North Carolina fled their homes as it approached - but Rachel Ervin and her husband James did not.

Fingers to flood

Less than a year before, they had moved into their "dream home", a two-storey brick house they had built for their retirement, and were certain that no hurricane winds could damage it.

They even invited friends and family to come ride out the storm with them.

North Carolina still feels the effects of Hurricane Floyd, seven years after it struck In pictures

"We were thinking it would come up the coast and tomorrow we'd get back to normal," James Ervin recalled. "Well, it came up the coast and just stopped."

Floyd - almost twice the size of an average Atlantic storm - dumped 20 inches of rain onto land already soaked from another hurricane only three weeks earlier, and by the early hours of 17 September, water was creeping into the Ervins' house.

"It's a horrible feeling - fingers of water running across the floor," Mrs Ervin said.

The fingers became a flood, forcing the 10 people sheltering from the storm to move themselves and whatever they could carry to the upper floor.

By late that afternoon, they had all been evacuated by helicopter and boat.

But the Ervins' troubles did not end when the flood waters finally receded - it took them 14 months and tens of thousands of dollars of their own money to rebuild their home.

"My financial situation is quite weakened. My emotional situation... well, that which we lost is gone forever," James Ervin said.

'All gone'

Even so, they said, in some ways they were among the lucky ones.

More than 50 people died as a result of the storm, and entire neighbourhoods were completely washed away.

Allan Gurganus questions the wisdom of rebuilding at all costs

Allan Gurganus, the author of the novel The Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All, grew up in the wealthy Rocky Mount neighbourhood of West Haven.

"All the houses are gone. It's a little like being a native of Dresden," he said.

"The neighbourhood where I kissed my first girl, my first boy, had my first cigarette, my first bourbon, my first sexual experience - it's all gone."

Mr Gurganus - who is now working on a novel centred on the post-Floyd flooding - said he doubted the people of New Orleans understood yet that their lives had changed forever.

"For a year or two, people think they can just go back and buy furniture like the old furniture. It doesn't work that way."

He said he saw the re-election of New Orleans' mayor Ray Nagin as "an act of denial".

To rebuild or not?

And he said the determination to rebuild at all costs was not always wise.

He cited the example of the historically African-American town of Princeville, near Rocky Mount, which was destroyed and rebuilt after Floyd.

"That land was given to freed slaves because it was worthless," he said, because it is a flood plain. "In that case, 'You must rebuild' is very bad advice."

Some of Rocky Mount will never be rebuilt.

Only one house still stands in what was once a wealthy part of town along the river, and an entire housing development has been abandoned, destined to become a park.

Businesses have left the area, and the population of Edgecombe County has fallen.

John Gesseman, president of the local economic development coalition, said Floyd was not solely responsible for the decline.

It exacerbated a longer-term trend of jobs leaving the area due to globalisation, among other factors, he argued.

But there were causes for optimism, he said, including the construction of a huge new arts centre and a new investment by the retailer Sam's Club.

However, he added that the flood had caused a "terrible loss" for many industries - some of which were spread out over years.

"It's going to be at least four or five years for all this to play out," he said of business losses along the Gulf Coast.

"Nothing will ever be the same here. There's no reason to think it will ever be the same there."