THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, August 11, 1994 TAG: 9408110536
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
SOURCE: BY BETTY MITCHELL GRAY, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: GREENVILLE LENGTH: Medium: 55 lines
Nearly 40 years ago, Hurricane Hazel roared ashore near Wilmington, leaving behind 20 dead, more than $100 million in damage and 200 people injured.
North Carolina's coast has grown tremendously since then. Some coastal communities have doubled or tripled in population, and many of today's coastal residents and visitors have never experienced a hurricane of Hazel's power.
``It's critical that we understand that,'' Gov. James B. Hunt Jr. said in an interview Wednesday.
He was the main speaker at the first statewide hurricane preparedness conference and said, ``Our job is to be the best we can be. It's a matter of life and death. This conference was intended to help us prepare.''
Hunt was one of about 350 state and federal emergency management officials, law enforcement officers and elected officials who attended the Governor's Hurricane Preparedness Conference to learn what to do if another Hurricane Hazel hits the state's coast.
In today's dollars, Hazel's damage to North Carolina would have totaled $1.4 billion, compared with $13 million in damage caused in 1993 when Hurricane Emily hammered Hatteras Island.
``North Carolina is going to have another Hazel,'' Hunt said. ``It's inevitable. Morally we have the responsibility to do everything within our power to help our people and to save them.''
Hunt was in Greenville to announce the funding of a four-year, $1.7 million update of hurricane evacuation measures being prepared by state emergency management coordinators, the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
The study, to be completed in 1997, will replace a plan in use since 1987 and could lead to changes in evacuation schedules and some evacuation routes used along the coast.
``We are as prepared as you can possibly be at this point in time,'' said Buddy Jackson, assistant director of the state Division of Emergency Management. ``But it's a constant effort to keep that planning done . . . so that we will be ready to act.''
Last August, with Hurricane Emily headed for the North Carolina coast, Dare County emergency management officials oversaw the evacuation of about 150,000 people from local beaches in just 10 hours.
Planning and public education are the keys to being prepared for a hurricane, said Clarence Skinner, vice chairman of the Dare County Board of Commissioners and a speaker at the conference.
``I don't believe you can truly get totally prepared for a hurricane like Hazel,'' Skinner said. ``But we have learned from the past. We could do a 1,000 percent better job handling Emily than we did.'' by CNB