By Terrell Johnson
Staff writer, weather.com, Monday, Sept. 20, 1999
Rivers continued to rise Sunday in flood-swamped eastern North Carolina, where thousands of residents were still without power and more than 400 roads remain impassable after the damage left by last week's Hurricane Floyd.
"North Carolina continues to be under seige," said Richard Moore, the state's public safety secretary. "We are literally at war."
The death toll also rose Sunday, as four people drowned and two others were reported missing after their boat capsized in the town of Pinetops, about 50 miles east of the capital Raleigh.
"They were in a boat trying to get out, trying to get to higher ground. The water was up so you couldn't see the houses. It was up over the roofs," said Wanda Joyner, a local police dispatcher.
Though estimates have varied, disaster officials have confirmed that at least 37 people have died in storm-related accidents since Floyd hit the East Coast early Thursday. Many of those have died while trying to drive through flooded areas.
More than 400 roads remained closed, including parts of Interstate Highways 40 and 95, and some supermarkets in the East were running out of food, officials said.
Many in shelters still unable to return home
The storm damaged at least 3,000 to 4,000 homes across a ten-state area and emergency officials estimated that one million people along the East Coast remained without power late Saturday night.
In North Carolina, thousands of people in the eastern part of the state remained in shelters late Saturday, while about 172,000 had no electricity and 50,000 had no telephone service.
About 5,600 people were staying in shelters set up by the Red Cross throughout the state Sunday, and emergency officials said they will likely not return to their homes before the weekend.
"Next weekend might be the earliest for some of these people," said state emergency management spokesman Matt Shaw.
The state has also likely suffered its costliest natural disaster ever to crops and livestock, officials said, eclipsing the $344 million in damage left by Hurricane Fran in 1996. So far, agricultural experts have estimated the state's crop losses from Floyd at $75 million for cotton and $80 million for tobacco.
"This potentially is the worst agricultural damage that eastern North Carolina has ever faced," said Jim Knight, a spokesman for the state agricultural department.
Rivers still rising — worst may not yet be over
The worst may not yet be over for the state, however, as rising rivers and the prospect of additional rain in the coming week are causing concern.
"We are looking at rivers in the East to be out of their banks for days, certainly into next week," said meteorologist Jim Merrell of the National Weather Service (NWS). "All of the rivers in eastern North Carolina have had all-time highs."
The NWS reported Sunday that flooding remains severe in seven North Carolina counties - Jones, Duplin, Pitt, Lenoir, Beaufort, Greene and Craven.
Meanwhile, helicopters from the Coast Guard, U.S. Army, National Guard and the Marines continued to rescue people from their rooftops, where many have spent the past several days. They also dropped food and supplies to residents stranded inside their homes.
President Clinton, who has declared a disaster emergency in North Carolina, will visit the state's hard-hit areas on Monday. Federal disaster aid is also available now for New York, New Jersey and Virginia.
On Sunday, Clinton announced disaster aid would be available for home- and business-owners hit by Floyd in New Jersey, Pennsylvania and New York.
The assistance will include disaster housing, grants, low-cost loans to cover uninsured property losses and other assistance to help individuals recover from last week's storm.
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