Gimme shelter: North Carolinians take
refuge from Florence's fury
Send a link to a friend
[September 14, 2018]
By Anna Mehler Paperny
NEW BERN, N.C. (Reuters) - Junia MacDaniel
just wants to get home to her Chihuahuas.
All 14 of them are back in the double-wide trailer MacDaniel shares with
her husband in New Bern, North Carolina.
The MacDaniels are seeking shelter from the monster storm Hurricane
Florence, and they decided it was best to leave their little dogs
behind.
They were among 12,000 North Carolinians staying in shelters after being
displaced by the slow-moving storm that is expected to bring powerful
storm surges and dozens of inches of rain to the eastern part of the
state.
“This has been a really large evacuation and sheltering operation,
probably the largest we've done, so that has not been an easy lift. I
think it’s working,” said Keith Acree of North Carolina's Department of
Emergency Management.
North Carolina began feeling the effects of Florence's wind and heavy
rain on Thursday afternoon but the storm was not expected to make
landfall until late night or early on Friday.
![](http://archives.lincolndailynews.com/2018/Sep/14/images/ads/current/graue_sda_2016.png)
Avis Miner, 57, brought her friend and five grandchildren to a shelter
in Washington, about 100 miles east of Raleigh, after leaving their
trailer home in Aurora. She worried that if they stayed home “we’d be
blown away.”
In shelters on Thursday, people crowded on cots, inflatable mattresses
and blankets on the floors and in hallways of gymnasiums, clustering in
corners to talk and outside to smoke.
More than 200 people had arrived at Wilmington’s Trask Middle School by
Wednesday afternoon, along with 20 dogs, nine cats and a bird. More
sought safety at another shelter in the city.
“It wasn’t safe,” said David Sullivan, a 76-year-old retired tow boat
captain who evacuated his downtown Wilmington apartment. “I just figured
come here and be safe.”
[to top of second column]
|
![](../images/091418pics/news_e11.jpg)
People arrive to a shelter run by Red Cross before Hurricane
Florence comes ashore in Washington, North Carolina, U.S., September
13, 2018. REUTERS/Eduardo Munoz
![](../images/ads/current/fitzpatrick_lda_SPONSOR_2017.png)
Debbie Green, director of social services for Pamlico County, said
she is always worried about people being too isolated and vulnerable
to make it to a shelter and, she said, “There are always people that
are not willing to leave.”
Still, the shelter she is overseeing in Grantsboro, about 130 miles
east of Raleigh, was 81 percent full by noon on Thursday and Green
expected that number to swell. "People will come in the middle of a
storm,” she said.
MacDaniel, who has sat out previous storms, said everyone told her
that Florence would be different.
“All the other storms we stayed put. But they told us this storm was
the doozy,” MacDaniel said. “We have never flooded before but we
didn’t really want to take no chances.”
Now, she’s counting the hours until she can return home to her
Chihuahuas.
“When it clears up just a little bit, momma’s going home ... I just
miss my dogs.”
(Additional reporting By Ernest Scheyder in Wilmington, North
Carolina; Editing by Frank McGurty, Toni Reinhold)
[© 2018 Thomson Reuters. All rights
reserved.]
Copyright 2018 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Thompson Reuters is solely responsible for this content.
![](http://archives.lincolndailynews.com/2018/Sep/14/images/ads/current/cca_laptop-sda021709.png) |