THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, September 17, 1996 TAG: 9609170272
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
SOURCE: BY DENNIS PATTERSON, ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: RALEIGH LENGTH: 55 lines
Damage estimates for Hurricane Fran climbed to $3.4 billion Monday, most of it to private homes, in what Gov. James B. Hunt Jr. called the worst disaster ever to hit North Carolina.
Hunt, at a meeting with President Clinton on Saturday, said damage estimates eventually could grow to between $5 billion and $6 billion.
Emergency management officials tallying damage figures said Monday the Sept. 5 storm destroyed 1,953 homes and left 30,273 with major damage and 11,467 with minor damage. The home losses alone amounted to $2.2 billion.
Fourteen businesses were destroyed and 621 suffered major damage. An additional 256 businesses had minor damage, for a total of $50 million.
Agricultural loses were estimated at $700 million, and the cost of government assistance for debris removal was estimated at $415 million.
``That's $3.4 billion, and that's just the first ones,'' said Tom Ditt of the state Emergency Management Office.
The damage estimates did not include flooding in the eastern part of the state in the aftermath of the storm. The floods continued to sweep around homes in Lenoir County Monday afternoon.
The North Carolina Farm Bureau, like other major insurance companies, brought in help from outside to handle the avalanche of insurance claims. But it will take a long time to get all the claims handled.
``It's going to be weeks. I can't give you any projection beyond that,'' said Bill Pollard of the Farm Bureau. ``It's just going to be weeks.
``We're just asking people to be patient, do what they need to do, make the repairs and keep their receipts,'' he said. ``It's all we can do.''
Ditt said the state Department of Transportation alone has hauled away an estimated 14,000 truckloads of debris, which equals about 150,000 cubic yards of trees, limbs and stumps. DOT has 3,000 to 4,000 workers involved in storm cleanup.
The National Guard still has3,100 Guardsmen on duty. Guard units cleared debris from 93 schools in Wake County and six in Wayne County over the weekend, Ditt said. Guardsmen will clean Harnett County schools Tuesday.
``They're going to try to release the South Carolina and other out-of-state Guardsmen over the next couple of days if they can,'' Ditt said.
The Army Corps of Engineer has contracts with nine contractors, he said, which amounts to 69 work crews, 292 trucks and 132 front-end loaders.
``They're working on trees on houses right now,'' he said. ``It's based on a safety factor. Does a tree block someone from getting into their home? Does it block a door? Is there a safety threat to people going in and out?''
The emergency operations center in the basement of the Administration Building began gearing down Monday. The center, which began round-the-clock operations several days before the storm hit, went back on an 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. schedule and had received only 16 calls for help Monday morning, mostly involving debris removal.
KEYWORDS: HURRICANE FRAN DAMAGE by CNB