LUMBERTON — With the sun finally showing itself, Robeson County residents, punch drunk from a second epic hurricane in two years, ventured outside to take inventory of just how bad it is.
Hurricane Florence surely resurrected nightmares of Hurricane Matthew, but this time the deluge was even worse, with about 2 feet of water falling Friday through Sunday. Matthew’s was 18 inches in a day.
On Monday, the National Guard, Coast Guard and swift-water teams from across the country were rescuing people from flooded homes. There had been no reports of any lives lost in Robeson County to Florence, which was being blamed for at least 15 deaths in both Carolinas.
“This is worse than Matthew,” said Kellie Blue, assistant county manager. “People need to stay at home and off the roads so not to get in the way of people doing emergency work. We got a lot of people out trying to help those in distress, and we don’t need to add to the number of people in trouble.
Blue was working long hours at the county’s Emergency Operations Center as she did during the 2016 storm.
Once again, West Lumberton and South Lumberton got the worst of it, and residents there were under a mandatory evacuation. A makeshift wall of 5,000 sandbags held out the water for awhile, but gave way on Sunday, and the Lumber River, which was higher than during Matthew, began rushing inward.
There were reports of water in peoples home from all corners of the county, and many were evacuating Mayfair beside N.C. 211. Many people who did not have water damage during Matthew were saying on Facebook they were not so lucky this time.
The river had retreated to 21 feet, but that might be temporary as rain that was dumped west of the county flows this way.
County officials opened a fifth shelter at Red Springs High School. There were on Monday about 1,400 people in shelters, with the others at Lumberton High, Purnell Swett High, South Robeson High, St. Pauls High and Fairmont Middle schools.
There was a voluntary evacuation on Lowe Road, near the cultural center for the Lumbee Tribe, as fears mounted that a dike would give away.
Rumors that the levee beside Interstate 95 had breached were not true.
Utility companies were scambling to get power restored. The news was best in Lumberton, where City Manager Wayne Horne said all the grids were operating, though there were some scattered outages. Duke Energy and Lumbee River Electric Membership, which each had about 20,000 outages at the peak, were working to restore their lines. Walter White, a spokesman for LREMC, told a radio station that the company was hampered by “fuel issues” on Monday, but said when that was resolved, he expected progress to be made quickly. Those who wanted to check the status of Duke Energy could do so here — https://s3.amazonaws.com/outagemap.duke-energy.com/ncsc/default.html.
City officials were fighting persistent rumors that they were going to cut off the water supply.
Horne told The Robesonian on Monday that there were no plans to do so, but city officials were asking people to conserve water. He said the city is worried its wells will be overrun by the river, and if that happens the city has “about two days of water” supply. He said the city has ordered potable water and would use a work-around method it used after Matthew when the water plant was off line for almost a month. He said a makeshift berm that was put up shortly before the storm was continuing to provide some protection.
The Public Schools of Robeson County lost its temporary office on Kahn Drive, just as it did after Matthew. School is out until further notice. Robeson Community College will not hold classes the rest of the week, and officials at The University of North Carolina at Pembroke said it would be at least Monday before classes can be held.
Travel was difficult, especially from one side of Interstate 95 to the other. City officials said the best access into the city is through Alamac Road and the road was closed to all except emergency vehicles.
City and county officials were telling people to stay home, pointing out that downed power lines were a danger, as well as roads that were flooded. A long stretch of Interstate 95 was closed, going both north and south from the county.
The state Department of Transportation provides an update of road closures at drivenc.gov, which redirects to its TIMS website. It is updated all day, seven days a week.
The Robesonian, just as happened with Matthew, was flooded out of its office, and its staff was using robesonian.com, Facebook and an E-edition to provide need-to-know news to county residents. The office flooded despite county Commissioner Tom Taylor, the chief of the Allenton Fire Department, and some of his firefighters rushing to the building in the rain to reinforce it with sandbags.
Gasoline could be found, but often required a long wait.
Some stores were open, but finding a bite to eat was difficult. At the Pembroke Walmart on Monday many of the shelves were barren.
Curfews were in effect across the county, and the Sheriff’s Office has said it would enforce laws against price gouging vigorously.
Southeastern Health had some clinics closed, and others opened. For more information, see page 3A.
Channing Jones, a Pembroke councilman and the person in charge of economic development in the county, was working with Christy Strickland of the N.C. Cooperative Extension Office to set up a center for the distribution of items people need when that time comes.
The United Way of Robeson County was looking for volunteers to help with recovery efforts.
