DATE: Sunday, November 2, 1997              TAG: 9711020103

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B1   EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA 

SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS 

                                            LENGTH:   93 lines

HURRICANES LAST LONG AFTER WINDS DIE DOWN STATE AGENCIES ARE SWAMPED YEARS AFTER FRAN, BERTHA, HUGO.

In the bureaucratic sense, spent hurricanes are like old soldiers - they never die, they just slowly fade away.

So it is with Hurricane Fran. The storm that inflicted the worst damage ever on North Carolina more than a year ago is a memory for many who lived through it.

But Fran and Hurricane Bertha, which came about a month earlier, are active events for state employees who scrutinize and approve payment for disaster relief claims. The books don't close when the last tree is cut.

``We still have Hugo open,'' Eric Tolbert, director of the state Division of Emergency Management, said of the hurricane that came ashore in 1989 in South Carolina and blew through Charlotte and the central part of North Carolina.

``There is a national debate as to how (emergency relief payments) can be more efficiently delivered. Some say the way to do it is do a construction estimate, write them a check and walk away from it.

``Local governments affected probably wouldn't like the system because a year later they can't come back for more.''

Tolbert said the books on Fran probably will be open for seven or eight years because an aid grant totaling millions of dollars won't be delivered in one check.

An example of the complexity of disaster recovery sits in Belhaven, where two schools were damaged by Fran and Bertha.

A year after the hurricane, state and local officials still were dealing with environmental studies so a new school can be built above expected water levels. The local school system already received about $1 million to help provide temporary classrooms, Tolbert said.

As of mid-October, the state had written checks totaling $193 million to help local governments and individuals recover from damages caused by Fran. The total for Bertha's damage was about $18 million, said Mike Barham, controller for the state Department of Crime Control and Public Safety.

Other agencies loaned personnel to supplement the 20 people in Barham's office so checks could be written. They included the state controller's office and the Departments of Human Resources, Administration and Correction. More than 2,000 hours of overtime were logged from September 1996 to January 1997, when the payment crunch ended.

``They turned the individual family grants around in one day. We knew the importance of these people receiving their money. A lot of people lost everything they owned,'' Barham said.

``I've never handled anything like Fran before.''

The check-writers also paid the 5,000 to 6,000 members of the National Guard who were activated to help cope with debris removal after Fran.

At its busiest point, Barham's office had three to four printers churning out thousands of checks. Now, the pace has cooled, but the office still writes hurricane relief checks twice a week. Payments to individuals have been completed, but checks still are being written for public projects.

``We're still making public assistance payments and will for several years,'' Barham said.

Public assistance payments are made to governments for repayment of projects such as sewer repairs or dune rebuilding. The process, though streamlined from past storms, still is complicated and involves several agencies before Barham's office writes a check.

Public assistance payments were initially approved by a Federal Emergency Management Agency inspector shortly after the storm. Then, as work is done at local levels by contractors, the local governments are reimbursed. That reimbursement paper trail flows from the locality to FEMA's regional center in Atlanta and then to a leased office in downtown Raleigh where the state's Disaster Recovery Center operates.

Claims are reviewed three times before money is released, said Jessica Whittenburg, a manager at the center.

``We just want to make sure they follow correct procedures before we release money,'' Whittenburg said. ``A lot of times, you're talking about a whole bunch of money and we want to be sure they stay within their scope of work.''

At the center, temporary workers hired by the Division of Emergency Management doublecheck the claims and forward them to Barham's office, where the checks are written or electronic fund transfers are made. About 80 people will work for three years to handle last year's hurricane payments, Tolbert said.

The five counties that qualified for the largest amounts of aid a year after Fran were: New Hanover, $63.7 million; Onslow, $35.8 million; Wake, $35 million; Pender, $17.6 million, and Carteret, $9.6 million. Fifty-eight counties qualified for assistance.

A batch of recent approvals included a new ball field and greenhouse for the Nash County-Rocky Mount school system, $16,936; debris removal at the North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics, $4,487; repair work at the Robeson County Courthouse, $2,895; replacement of walkways and recreational facilities at Topsail Beach, $48,461; and debris removal from the watershed in Brunswick County, $22,769.

Sometimes, governments have to send back money. The town of Belhaven is one example, returning $2,024 for city hall repairs that were covered by insurance. And North Topsail Beach was told to return $138,195 for repairs that were reimbursed twice by mistake.

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