For those who missed “Good Morning America’s” segment Thursday on the Robeson County recovery from Hurricane Floyd, following is a recap — editor.
“Four women have been bringing the community and students together and they are with our Rob right now,” host Robin Roberts said, introducing Rob Marciano, meteorologist.
“So often it’s the coastal towns, the beach towns that get all the attention when a hurricane comes ashore but more often than not it’s the inland cities like this one that get the horrific, devastating flooding,” Marciano said. “The way this community has persevered is just truly remarkable. FEMA’s come in. They’ve done their part. They’ve certainly helped out a lot but there is a lot of work to be done.”
Marciano then introduced four educators and praised them for the work they did in helping students following the flooding.
“Make no mistake. These four ladies are heroes. What they don’t know is we are here to honor and celebrate them with this community to show them just how much they appreciate you,” he said.
Angela Faulkner, Tara Bullard, Felicia Hunt and Vicki McGuirt listened and watched as GMA showed a video of interviews from teachers and students who talked about their devotion in making sure children had the supplies and other necessities they needed when they returned to school.
The video, which also included footage of the October flooding, reminded viewers that it left three-fourths of Lumberton under water and destroyed 1,000 homes.
Responding to the video, Faulkner said it brought tears to her eyes.
“You just show up every day and you hope that what you’re doing makes a lot of difference in their lives,” Faulkner said.
Marciano said Bullard had gone to her school as soon as water receded to salvage whatever supplies she could get.
“We’ve just been very welcomed here on this campus,” Bullard said.
Marciano said the educators had made sure their students had Thanksgiving, Christmas, and supplies for home and for school.
“You have given of your heart and your soul to this community these last four months and we want to do a little something, if you don’t mind, to give a little piece of our collective hearts here at GMA and the Lumberton community,” Marciano said.
At that point, students lined up in the shape of a heart, GMA’s 50 Hearts 50 State’s We Are GMA feature.
The network then announced a donation from its parent company Disney to build a new playground and a $50,000 donation from Lowe’s Home Improvement for the Parkview Activity Center.
Roberts encouraged those who want to help families still in need to do so by going to abcnews.go.com, which has information on giving at “Dare to Donate a Dollar.”
