Flood waters force evacuation from a changed Kinston
They got out with a few clothes. Nearly everything else in the house was lost.
"We said then, when we stayed here like that, we'd never do it again," Johnson said Monday as a half dozen relatives and friends picked up everything she owned, piece by piece, and stuffed it into a truck and trailer parked outside. "They told us to get out, and to get out today. We're getting out."
The city of
Floyd was one of the costliest storms in state history. In
After Floyd,
To do that, state and local governments relied heavily on the
The money was used to buy more than 400 residential structures in the city and county, three mobile home parks and 68 vacant lots. Where houses used to be, the city and county now have parks and green spaces.
The city bought many of the homes of Johnson's neighbors and tried to buy Johnson's house, too. But her late husband had a massive heart attack a month after the flood, and his health declined rapidly. Doctors told Johnson that if she could save the house, he would fare better there, amid familiar surroundings, than if the couple moved to a new place.
The house had to be taken down to the studs and rebuilt, then refurnished. Flood insurance paid for about half, Johnson said. They used savings for some and borrowed the rest.
Johnson, now 90, wept Monday to think she might lose the house again.
"It hurts," she said. "You work your whole life just to see it, whoosh, gone."
Most of the places here that flooded after Hurricane Floyd flooded again with Hurricane Matthew, and will get even more water -- much more -- as the Neuse crests later this week. Current projections by the
That would bring it back up into Roland and
"The last time, I rode a boat right up on my front porch,"
Monday, friends and relatives helped the Chadwicks clear out the house and their neighboring tire and automotive business. By late afternoon, all the tires had been lashed down in a storage building, and Chadwick's tools and equipment were safely stowed. At the house, it was down to the washer and dryer and the spices in the kitchen cupboard.
The Chadwicks' home would have been eligible for a buyout through the mitigation program, but the couple said they didn't feel the offer was high enough. Plus, the land and business had been in
She was emotional Monday about the prospect of rising water.
"It's bad enough to lose your house or your business," she said. "But we could lose both."
"I keep watching the water, hour by hour, coming and coming and coming," Zayyad said.
Zayyad's car lot is just down the street from the Ultimate Body Shop, in a building
Sunday, Wiggins went on Facebook to ask for help, and a couple dozen people came out, some with trucks and trailers to haul away cars that were in his garage, along with tools and gear. Monday afternoon, the place was nearly bare.
Nothing to do now, he said, but wait.
News researcher
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