Reflecting on Florence

Sept. 28--Six days of preparation. Six intense hours. Two-hundred-and-sixty incident calls. Ninety-four roads closed. More than 3,000 customers without power. Several inches of flood water. Five water rescues. Nearly 6 inches of rain. One home destroyed.

The damage of Hurricane Florence's path over North Carolina can be measured several ways, but for Davidson County, Lexington and Thomasville officials, these numbers paint the truest picture.

By Sept. 10, the fear of Florence had set in. At that time, forecasters predicted Hurricane Florence would make a direct hit on the North Carolina coast and travel inland and upward directly over Davidson County. County Emergency Management staff began the scramble to prepare. Homeowners rushed to the grocery stores, buying them out of bread and water.

"The only fortunate thing about this storm was it allowed us to prepare," said Davidson County Emergency Management Coordinator Maj. Alton Hanes.

That day, the county's emergency management division held a meeting, taking stock of equipment and deciding what would need to be done to buckle down ahead of the storm. The following day, a similar meeting was held and approximately 75 representatives the county's public and private school systems, fire departments, utilities companies and more attended.

Meetings were also held at the city level.

Thomasville City Manager Kelly Craver said the city already had its own emergency management coordinator position filled and an emergency operations center was established.

"Creating the EOC and creating a coordinator for all of our emergency preparedness, I think, was key for us," he said.

Thomasville leaders held two meetings with city departments to get prepared in the week before Florence hit.

"We've been preparing for things like this for well over a year and getting our staff prepared to coordinate our efforts. Having that is what made us prepared," Craver added.

The City of Lexington took a similar approach in gathering teams and crews together to be prepared for the impacts.

"We had everybody on call and in place," said Lexington City Manager Alan Carson of Lexington Utilities' preparations. "We had a 24-hour system in place."

"If we didn't have the electrical system, it would be much easier (to prepare)," he joked.

In the days that followed, Florence's path became less clear. Shifting forecast models now predicted the storm would turn southward, having more significant impacts on South Carolina. Even so, Davidson County and its major municipalities declared states of emergency to recoup the costs associated with the storm preparations and clean-up.

By Friday, the storm had made landfall directly over Wilmington. Davidson County held its breath, waiting for the impact. That impact, at least at its most intense, would not reach the area until Sunday; but in the meantime, the county saw foreboding signs including downed trees, power outages, increasing winds and on-and-off rainfall.

The power outages began Friday as increasingly strong winds took down older and weaker trees. Due to the preparation, however, power crews were quickly responding to and repairing outages. By Sunday, though, crews, both on the utility and emergency services sides, began to be overwhelmed by the number of calls coming in.

Hanes estimated the strongest hours of impact on Davidson County fell between 5:30 or 6 p.m. and midnight on Sunday. Within those six hours, emergency crews across the area received so many calls that hurricane protocols were initiated at local fire stations.

"Setting up that hurricane protocol just allows us to take or relieve some of that pressure off the 911 Center," he said.

By late Monday morning, the clouds had parted and the sun began poking its way out over the county. Tree limbs were down across yards, foundations had crumbled and students were kept home. Large trees still lay across roadways, pulling down power lines. Floodwaters had begun to recede in the low-lying areas of the county, but it would be midweek before all the county's roads reopened.

Overall, Lexington and Thomasville officials do not feel that Hurricane Florence left significant, lasting damage in the area, especially not when compared to the devastation at the coast.

"We really were very blessed. Our cleanup afterwards was substantial, but it was really on par with what we had from some of our severe thunderstorms," Craver said of the impact in Thomasville.

"For us, I don't think it was anything extraordinary," Carson said of the storm's damages within the Lexington city limits. Other areas of the county, however, including low-lying areas of Thomasville and Denton and the greater southern-end of the county, could not say the same.

To view our photo gallery from the storm, click here.

By the numbers

The county, as well as the cities of Lexington and Thomasville, have since sent out information recapping damages.

Davidson County reported the most incident calls, which Hanes estimated at 160. Hanes further clarified that these 160 calls came just in the six hours of heavy damage during the storm. He could not provide an estimated total of calls between Friday and Monday when the area experienced some impact from Florence.

Thomasville followed with 60 incident call between 8 a.m. Friday and 8 a.m. Monday, 21 of which were for downed trees or power lines. Lexington reported an additional 40 calls in that same time frame.

These 260 incident calls included downed trees, downed power lines, flooded streets, vehicle rescues, home flooding, and alarm calls due to power outages.

As far as road closures, Davidson County also saw its fair share. Hanes reported approximately 80 roads closed throughout the county, while Thomasville reported 14 closings. Carson said Lexington did not fully close any roads within the city limits, though five streets were affected by floodwaters.

Roads remained closed well into Tuesday as crews worked to clear trees or restore power and due to the flooding of the Yadkin River.

Hanes reported that five vehicle rescues were conducted by Davidson County emergency crews after cars became stuck in floodwaters Sunday night. He said most of the incidents were minor, though two of the rescues required significant assistance.

In Thomasville, a driver drove around road closure barricades on Randolph Street near Carolina Avenue and became stuck in floodwaters, requiring the Thomasville Fire Department to conduct a rescue. Out in the county, a woman became trapped in her car near Parks Road and Bethany Road. Davidson County deputies piggybacked the woman to safety. Both drivers in these rescues were OK, Hanes said.

In total, Davidson County saw nearly six inches of rain fall throughout the storm, according to the National Weather Service. That amount was enough to flood several streets in all areas of the county, but particularly in the southern end. A large portion of the downtown Denton area flooded Sunday night.

The rainfall also caused the Yadkin River to crest at 20.82 feet at 8 a.m. on Sept. 17. Agricultural lands on both banks saw flooding due to the crest. The National Weather Service said it would take nearly a week to fully recede.

A home on Happy Hill Court also had its foundation begin to crumble as the floodwaters set in. Firefighters responded to the scene Sunday night, shutting off the gas and power to the home.

Throughout the entirety of the storm, more than 3,000 Davidson County customers are believed to have lost power. Carson said the DataVoice outage system recorded 659 outage events, which translates to about 900 customers affected within the Lexington Utilities service area. Energy United also provided an estimate of just over 2,000 customers in Davidson County without power due to the storm. Duke Energy was unable to provide a county-specific total number of outages, though several hundred customers could be seen without power on the company's online outage map during various points of the storm.

No significant injuries were reported during Florence, Hanes said.

Preparing for the future

For future storms, the county is hoping to make some improvements in preparation and communication with residents.

While Hanes applauded the staff of the emergency operation center, the Sheriff's Office and the 911 Center, improvements can always be made, he said. Hanes explained that the county is currently working to improve the communication abilities of the CodeRED emergency alert system to include shelter information.

"It's about our citizens, and we want to be sure we can provide them the best services in these emergencies," Hanes said. "We need to maintain that communication and situational awareness."

According to Hanes, county shelters are typically set up for the aftermath of the storm rather than as a preemptive move. Sharing this information more directly with residents through the CodeRED system could help ease public concerns, he explained.

The emergency management coordinator also said he hopes this information will encourage more residents to sign up for the system.

Craver also commended the efforts of his emergency management team, but agreed that more practice is needed.

"We've still got a little more practice to do with FEMA record keeping, but from an operational standpoint, things went very smoothly," he said.

Carson said his team debriefed after the storm and no specific changes for future storms are sought at this time.

While Florence caused significant concern for the public and officials alike, Hanes said he was, in a way, grateful as it got people's minds focused on storm preparation for the winter weather that is still to come.

Elizabeth Pattman can be reached at (336) 249-3981, ext. 213, or at [email protected]. Follow Elizabeth on Twitter: @LexDispatchEP

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