Princeville waits and hopes that Matthew flooding won’t be as bad as Floyd

Annie Battle sat on a bench outside Tarboro High School on Tuesday, pondering the rising waters of the Tar River and the bridge over the swollen waterway linking her past to her future.

Battle is one of the 700 some residents who were evacuated from Princeville after Hurricane Matthew left massive flooding in its wake. Just how massive that might be in Edgecombe County was still uncertain by Tuesday evening.

The Tar River had been expected to crest early in the morning, by some National Weather Service models, but it was still rising late in the day.

Low-lying areas in Greenville flooded from the river spilling way beyond its banks. In Edgecombe County, “high water” signs, orange traffic cones, emergency vehicles and safety officers were common sights where water had pooled.

Battle and many others in the area were familiar with the malicious force that flood waters could be. Hurricane Floyd submerged Princeville in 1999, putting the historically significant town into a position of having to decide whether to ask the Army Corps of Engineers to rebuild the dike that broke 17 years ago or to forgo the opportunity and remain eligible for Federal Emergency Management Agency program buyouts.

Battle lost most everything in 1999 and was off her lot from September of that year to January 2000, when she moved into a new home there.

This time, though, she’s not so certain that she will cross back over the Tarboro-Princeville bridge for a return stay.

“I feel like if my house is destroyed, I’m not coming back,” Battle said while having a chicken lunch under bright blue skies that clouded the sense of doom some were feeling.

Regina Brooks, 27, fled Princeville, thought by some to be the oldest town in the nation incorporated by African-Americans, on Sunday with her toddler daughters.

Brooks’ mother, Stephanie Pippin, who lives across the river in a Tarboro neighborhood, also was evacuated and joined her daughter and grandchildren at the American Red Cross shelter that housed 140 residents in the high school gym Monday night.

They grabbed what they could as they left their homes for higher ground and safer conditions, knowing they might return to a soggy mess.

“Materialistic things aren’t what matter,” Pippin said. “Human lives are what matters.”

As they waited with uncertainty about what nature’s force would be in the coming days amid questions about when they might be able to return home, the women knew that the evacuations were just a first step in what could be months of disruption.

Many in Princeville remember going from shelters to destroyed homes to FEMA trailers miles away from their usual haunts after Floyd. They remember the bureaucratic red tape that comes with rebuilding as they worried about feeding their families, getting to work and some of the mundane routines of everyday living.

“Then you have to worry about being separated from your family,” Brooks said as her toddlers hugged her legs and her mother watched over her shoulder.

“It’s a lot of frustration,” Pippin said. “Not knowing exactly what the next move is going to be, that’s one of the hard parts.”

The flooding from Floyd, though, did not deter Betty Hinton, who was outside the Red Cross shelter with her son Tuesday. She remembers being displaced 17years ago, but she knew then that she would return to Princeville, the small town that will always feel like home.

“It’s where friends and family are,” she said.

Tarboro has rallied around those displaced by Hurricane Matthew and its aftermath.

At Tarboro Coffee House, owners Sam and Johnna Brothers organized a drop-off to collect diapers, pet food, hygiene products, bath towels and other necessities that will be distributed at the two shelters set up in town.

One mother brought a stack of coloring books for the kids, which are likely to delight the Red Cross volunteer who earlier in the day had taken a few cups of coffees from girls and declared no caffeine for those under 16.

The bridge that divides Tarboro from Princeville, blocked off from vehicular traffic, had become like a promenade with a street festival feel.

People leaned over the edge of the bridge with their phones out, shooting video and photos to share with family and friends on social media.

Rick Page, a former Tarboro mayor who was a utility director during Hurricane Floyd, pointed to a railroad trestle upstream from the bridge nearly underwater, saying it had been totally submerged 16 years ago.

The earthen dike on the Princeville side was still visible — “a good sign,” Page said. The Tar River had gone beyond the dike after Floyd, and that’s when Princeville experienced its worst flooding.

“The biggest lesson I think we learned then was to go ahead and evacuate early,” Page said. “If it turns out it wasn’t necessary, that’s OK. It’s better to be overly cautious.”

Richard M. Smith III, 67, was being overly cautious as he stood on the Tarboro side of the river and watched the swift water flowing by him with an eye toward the earthen dike. Smith was a volunteer firefighter when the town was being evacuated after Floyd.

This time, Smith grabbed as many clothes as he could from his closet, collected necessary documents and gathered Bibles that he had from his church because of his deacon work there.

He loaded them all into his car and drove to higher ground to wait out what the river has in store for him and the hundreds of others who call Princeville home.

“It’s still rising,” Smith said. “It’s not done yet.”

This story was originally published October 11, 2016 at 6:36 PM with the headline "Princeville waits and hopes that Matthew flooding won’t be as bad as Floyd."