THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, September 19, 1996 TAG: 9609190002
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A16 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
LENGTH: 50 lines
The toll exacted by Hurricane Fran's winds, rain, tornadoes, microbursts and surging waters in North Carolina, mainly, and in parts of Virginia is still being reckoned.
Nearly a score of lives were claimed by Fran. The estimated value of property destroyed in North Carolina alone runs to billions of dollars.
Residents of 19 Virginia cities and counties are eligible for federal emergency assistance because of damage caused by hurricane winds and flooding attributable to Fran's torrential rains on already saturated soil.
Hampton Roads residents should be as sobered by the death and devastation that Fran imposed on their neighbors as they are sympathetic to the pain, suffering and losses sustained by the survivors. A Category 3 hurricane (111-130 miles-per-hour winds), such as Fran, or, worse, a Category 4 (131-155 mph winds), or, worst, a Category 5 (catastrophic winds over 155 mph) would deal with Hampton Roads even more harshly.
The imprint of Categories 3 to 5 hurricanes lingers for decades. Hurricane Andrew's mark is still seen in Southern Florida. Hurricane Hugo's impact on Charleston, S.C., is still evident seven years later. Hurricanes may leave standing but mortally injured trees that may take years to die, stretching out the cleanup chore in the storms' wake.
Hurricanes not only kill, they also rearrange lives. Some businesses close, never to reopen. Some vacation homes disappear for good. Some families' wealth is swept away entirely or in part.
Fran, with winds of 115 miles per hour, struck North Carolina between New Bern and the South Carolina line Sept. 5, splintering barrier-island and mainland coastal cottages, collapsing condominiums, drowning motor vehicles. .
Water rose 8 feet in Carolina Beach. A million North Carolinians from the Atlantic's shores to the Research Triangle - Raleigh, Durham, Chapel Hill - lost electric power, many for most of a week. Trees crashed into houses. Fran rendered 4,000 houses in far-inland Raleigh-Wake County, N.C., uninhabitable.
Hampton Roads - with a population of 1.6 million - has been spared horror and misery on a monstrous scale. Hurricane seasons come and go, but Hampton Roads escapes their brunt time and again. How long the region's luck will hold is anyone's guess.
Hope and pray that it holds forever. But don't expect that it will. Hampton Roads cities and counties should be as prudently prepared as possible to respond to hurricanes from the weakest to the strongest; another ruinous hurricane almost surely will come their way someday. Families and individuals should also be prepared, if only to flee in a timely way. Preparation is the sole way to hold down the toll. by CNB