THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, September 14, 1996 TAG: 9609140222
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: FROM WIRE REPORTS
LENGTH: 112 lines
Now it's mosquitoes and poison ivy, snakes and alligators, ripoffs and thousands of tons of sewage and debris.
Last week's scenes of power and destruction have given way to stories of tedium and tenacity in the aftermath of Hurricane Fran.
Water still surrounds homes in North Carolina's Coastal Plain after a miserable week of more rain and humidity. Crews from a half dozen states slog into cornfields and wade neck deep into swamps to cut fallen trees from sagging power lines.
In Raleigh, schools have been closed for six days now, 50,000 are without power and the cleanup is expected to take take two to three months.
To get a better sense of Fran's lingering effects, consider:
About 25,000 to 40,000 tons of debris will be removed from the Orange County area, which includes Chapel Hill.
In Raleigh, a man was arrested for charging an 87-year-old woman $18,000 to clear two trees and debris from her property.
Research Triangle emergency rooms are treating dozens for injuries caused by chainsaws, falls from roofs and trees, spills from bikes and skateboards, and even poison ivy. The resin from vines in fallen trees mixes with sawdust, dispersing it widely.
More than 80 publicly-owned wastewater treatment plants - and possibly some private ones - failed during the storm, dumping millions of gallons of raw sewage into waterways.
Throughout the state, officials think an onslaught of disease-carrying mosquitoes could require a counterattack with pesticides.
On parts of the Cape Fear River, hazardous hog-waste runoff from nearby pork producers poses health problems and is under investigation by state authorities.
The cost of Hurricane Fran's damage to North Carolina will surpass $1 billion, including some schools that will have to be rebuilt.
Gov. James B. Hunt Jr. estimated Friday that the total would hit $500 million just to repair public facilities.
``We've got a number of schools that are going to have to be replaced,'' Hunt said.
Pender County on Carolina's Coastal Plain is water moccasin territory. Alligators lurk, too, in the swollen swamps and wetlands beside N.C. Route 11.
So the first reaction on seeing two men up to their necks in the water is that they must be Marines from nearby Camp Lejeune.
But Greg Harris and Todd Dieffenwierth, both from Dade City, Fla., belong to a tough breed not unlike soldiers. They're tree cutters.
Along with electrical and telephone line technicians, cutters do the nasty work after natural disasters. Hundreds of repair crews from Florida, Alabama, South Carolina, Pennsylvania and other states have convoyed into North Carolina.
``It's deep, wet and cold,'' Harris hollers from the swamp, where he's using a chainsaw to remove limbs from a sagging power line. His partner has just climbed out of the water. He extends a long pole to Harris and helps him ashore.
Harris says he hasn't seen any snakes or gators, but he's sure they're out there.
``I think the chainsaw scared 'em away,'' he says.
They came to North Carolina on Sunday in a convoy of 16 trucks from Davey Tree Co. They are bunking at Pender High School, whose sign, ``Home of the Patriots,'' remains toppled a week after the storm.
With the exception of several beach communities, probably no area suffered more and looks worse than the Coastal Plain.
Houses have become islands - with people still in them. A blue house on N.C. Route 53 has a wheelchair on the porch and a boat bobbing in the front yard.
Sgt. Phil Davenport of the Pender County Sheriff's Department pulls up in his cruiser and says rescue people have tried to persuade the elderly woman inside to leave.
``We have people who don't want to come out,'' he says. ``Tell you the honest truth, I don't know why. I guess they're scared of looters.''
Gene Lanier, a farmer on N.C. Route 11, serves coffee from the back of his four-wheel-drive vehicle to a dozen utility linemen in yellow rain slickers from the Cook County Electrical Cooperative in Florida.
``These are my friends and saviors,'' Lanier says.
Across the field on Route 11, convoys of utility trucks roll by. They're headed to trouble spots or into Burgaw, whose pretty brick courthouse with beautiful trees is now a lovely courthouse almost without trees.
``We saw a great big old copper head the other day,'' lineman Cleo Griffis says. ``He was dead. He floated by in a ditch. Fran had drowned him.''
He and the other men laugh. They're getting giddy. By early next week, they'll be back in familiar swamps in their home state.
Throughout North Carolina, insured losses were estimated at $723 million to personal property, and Carolina Power & Light Co. expected restoring electrical power to its customers to cost some $70 million.
Those figures do not include agricultural losses, estimates from other utilities or uninsured losses.
The estimates came in as Raleigh continued its resemblance to a logging camp. Huge trucks hauled logs, and cranes picked trees off houses, while crews packing chainsaws cut timber dropped by the storm.
At Martin Middle School, Staff Sgt. Tim Gaddy of Belmont supervised a 20-man team that was cutting trees and clearing debris.
``We're near Charlotte and when Hugo hit we were activated,'' Gaddy said. ``We understand. Most of us have children, too.''
The cleanup effort was so big across Raleigh and the region that trucks were in short supply despite the scores of National Guard vehicles brought in to help.
Hunt urged citizens to get out and help with a block-by-block cleanup.
``The job of cleaning up is just too big for any one agency or group to take care of,'' Hunt said.
``But if our citizens band together block by block, neighborhood by neighborhood, we can get tons of debris cleared from our homes and communities this Saturday. That will give us a tremendous boost in our efforts to restore our communities.'' MEMO: Compiled from reports by The Raleigh News and Observer, Landmark
News Service and The Associated Press. ILLUSTRATION: ASSOCIATED PRESS color photo
After floods near Burgaw, N.C., Marian and Eugene Parker face
hazardous hog-waste runoff from nearby pork producers. by CNB