‘I just can’t get that roar out of my head.’ NC residents deal with loss in Isaias’ wake
As the house started to lift around her Tuesday morning, Linda Jordan threw herself to the ground and called out for Jesus.
After the storm passed several terrifying seconds later, the Jordans’ home remained one of only two left largely intact in their Morning Road mobile community in rural Bertie County.
“When she called on Jesus, did the tornado lift up from us, and that’s why it skipped that house and went about its business?” asked James Jordan, Linda’s husband, between calls to insurance agents on Wednesday.
Up and down Eastern North Carolina, people in places clobbered by Isaias or the tornadoes it spun off Monday and early Tuesday continued to tally their losses Wednesday. In Bertie County, residents grieved two deaths, tended to more than a dozen injuries and set about rebuilding.
On Wednesday afternoon, Gov. Roy Cooper visited the Morning Road site. As he walked through the neighborhood, passing clothes and bathtubs and mobile home foundations, he marveled at the extent of the damage.
In the park’s northeast corner, a pot still stood on a stove, even though the storm had destroyed the trailer around it. In the southwest corner, a small red bicycle with training wheels dangled in a tree about 25 feet off the ground.
Lethia Edwards and Randolph Harrell were killed by the tornado, with 14 others injured. Steven Swain, Edwards’ nephew, was at the site Wednesday, trying to help his family gather their belongings.
Cooper offered his condolences to Swain and then said, “I’ve seen some damage, but this is pretty devastating. ... Hang in there, OK? We’ll try to help all we can.”
‘A devastating situation’
It was hard to tell how many trailers once stood in the field, which was covered with splintered plastic siding, twisted metal and warped personal effects. Dented cars sat pinned under fallen trees or found resting places dozens of feet from where their owners had parked them Monday as Hurricane Isaias approached the North Carolina coast.
“This is obviously a devastating situation for this close-knit community,” Cooper said. “To see the devastation and the power of the wind is just stunning, and people’s lives, parts of it, lying all over the ground. So this has got to be very tough.”
He vowed that federal and state governments are both working to assist the tornado’s victims.
Isaias was a Category 1 hurricane with 85 mph winds when it made landfall near Ocean Isle Beach in Brunswick County on Monday a little after 11 p.m.
The storm is thought to have spawned at least nine tornadoes in North Carolina, including the one that ripped through a section of Bertie County southeast of the town of Windsor, striking at least four neighborhoods.
The tornado was a Category Three with peak winds reaching between 140 and 145 mph, according to an assessment from the National Weather Service’s Wakefield, Virginia, office. After touching down at 1:15 a.m. near the intersection of Knowles Lane and Middle Track Road, the tornado moved north-northwest.
As it crossed Morning Road, the tornado was a third of a mile wide and at the peak of its intensity, the Weather Service reported. The storm flattened seven mobile homes there, according to the Weather Service, “leaving unrecognizable bits of debris.”
The tornado lost strength as it moved northwest, but maintained winds between 86 and 110 mph.
About 10 miles and 11 minutes after it touched down, the tornado lifted near Governors Road northwest of Windsor. It destroyed 21 homes along its path and damaging dozens more.
“You wonder looking at this devastation why that didn’t happen to more people,” Cooper said of the deaths, “and we’re thankful for that.”
The tornado’s roar
Located just south of Peterson Grove Missionary Baptist Church, the mobile home park was one of three on Morning Road. Residents and those familiar with it, including both Jordan and Swain, called it a quiet, friendly place.
Swain, whose aunt was killed in the tornado, said when his own home started rocking from the winds in one of those parks, he grabbed his girlfriend and children before huddling in a ball. There was a big roaring sound, Swain said, and every dog in the park started barking at once.
“It just shook it a little but there was enough scare right there,” Swain said. “I didn’t know if it was coming off the foundation or what.”
Down the road, his family members were less fortunate. His cousin suffered a fracture above his eye. His uncle suffered multiple injuries, including a broken neck, a bone in his back and leg.
Edwards, his aunt, was first reported missing. Swain was sitting down to eat when he learned that she had been killed.
“I just couldn’t eat no more,” Swain said. “My first time eating last night was probably about 11 o’clock.”
Others described the roar, too. Jordan insisted Wednesday there was no train sound, just a loud roar and then the overwhelming smell of cedar.
Like Swain, Chardae Cooper was at the site Wednesday to help family members gather their strewn belongings. As she walked through a cotton field across from the park, Cooper’s eyes passed over piles of clothes, a washing machines whose metal had been split open like a watermelon and strewn DVDs. She was looking for pictures, ideally her family’s, but possibly those belong to others, too, trying to save what she could.
“I just can’t get that roar out of my head,” Chardae Cooper said. “I couldn’t even sleep last night.”
Just 10 or 15 seconds after that roar started, it stopped.
At the back of the Morning Road park, Jordan first tried his back door. When it wouldn’t open, he went to the front door and realized homes throughout the community were gone.
And there was a new noise.
“I started hearing people holler. ... I heard my neighbor, he was saying he couldn’t find his wife, and so we got looking for her, and then we started bringing people to the house that were injured,” Jordan said.
Even as the storm raged, Jordan and others roamed the field, searching for the injured and responding to pleas for help. At one point, about 14 neighbors sought refuge at the Jordans’ house, waiting for help that couldn’t immediately reach them, first because of high winds and then because of trees and other debris across the roads.
Most of his neighbors were still in shock, Jordan recalled, but the tragedy also formed a bond.
“They were twirled, they were tossed and then they were dropped on top of an air conditioning unit, on top of a light pole, on top of pieces of somebody else’s house,” Jordan said. “My heart just went out to them.”
Damage in beach towns
The hurricane itself caused widespread damage in the southeastern part of the state — at Ocean Isle Beach and to the Brunswick County beach communities of Oak Island and Holden Beach, and in Southport on the Brunswick mainland.
Residents of Oak Island reported on social media that Isaias’ arrival, coinciding with a full moon and high tide, brought a 4-foot storm surge to the island that washed over properties three rows back from the ocean.
Video showed vehicles washed into the marsh behind the island, decks torn off of houses, downed trees and power poles and buckled pavement.
On Wednesday, the town was limiting access to much of the west side of town, where damage was the worst, allowing entry to only property owners, rental agents and contractors doing repair work. They could only be there from 6 a.m to 6 p.m.
Island residents said on that end of the island, some roads were buried under 2 feet of sand, and there was no electricity and water. Sewer service was cut off.
Curfews were lifted for the rest of town Wednesday at noon.
Vacationers looking forward to visiting the island in coming days or weeks took to an Oak Island community Facebook page to offer condolences to property owners or ask whether repairs might be made in time for them to complete their trips.
The Town of Holden Beach said Wednesday that damage there from Hurricane Isaias likely would total more than $40 million.
Property rentals have been temporarily halted at Holden Beach, the town said, but electricity has been restored across the island, and water and sewer were operating normally by Wednesday. The town had removed sand and other debris from the streets, but storm debris remains in canals on the island.
State water quality officials have advised against swimming in both the ocean and in soundside waters adjacent to Brunswick County because of the risk of bacterial contamination. The state said it will announce when testing shows the water is safe.
Brunswick Electric Membership Corporation said Wednesday afternoon that 3,500 customers still were without power, down from 43,000 who were in the dark at the peak of the outages. The company shared a brief video taken by drone showing Oak Island streets under water after the storm.
The Town of Ocean Isle Beach said Wednesday on its website that the island would reopen to the public at 7 a.m. Thursday and that vacation rentals would resume on Saturday, though some beach access areas remain closed because of storm damage.
Aid options
Last year, Hurricane Dorian caused isolated but severe damage to Ocracoke, shoving a record-setting storm surge from the Pamlico Sound across the island and displacing about 400 people. In that case, the Federal Emergency Management Agency denied North Carolina’s request for a federal individual assistance program because the damage was largely isolated to Ocracoke’s Hyde County and a Carteret County mobile home park that was hit by a tornado.
Individual assistance offers a slew of aid options, including grants for home repairs, unemployment assistance and the disaster food stamp program. Ultimately, North Carolina used Small Business Administration loans to help repair homes and businesses damaged by Dorian and offered individual assistance through state funds.
Walking through the Morning Road community on Wednesday, N.C. Emergency Management Director Mike Sprayberry said disaster assessments haven’t started yet, but that there will likely at least be a state program for individuals in the areas Isaias hit the hardest.
“If you’re like me, looking around, it looks pretty bad,” Sprayberry said.
This story was originally published August 5, 2020 at 3:34 PM.
