Hurricane Floyd changed North Carolina. Needs were, and continue to be, enormous. In addition to donations of money, clothing, food, and manpower, UNC-CH has offered a tide of expertise.

“I do agree with people that this is the worst environmental catastrophe the state has ever seen,” says Melva Okun, associate director of the Environmental Resource Program (ERP) at Carolina.

Okun first surveyed the damage caused by Floyd while flying over the hardest-hit counties in a helicopter with a reporter from U.S. News & World Report. Okun has studied the hog industry’s environmental effects for the last decade and has advised local health directors on their policies.

“This crisis represents a remarkable opportunity to improve North Carolina’s hog operations and their environmental impact,” Okun says. Drawing on the expertise of Okun and others, the state is committing resources to relocate hog farms and is reexamining the use of waste lagoons and spray fields.

All ERP staff members have been helping in shelters and distribution centers in Edgecombe County since the hurricane hit last September. The unit has composed health advisories on issues from well decontamination to dog bites (which increased dramatically following the hurricane). With a grant from the UNC-CH Center for Public Service, the ERP has been working to improve the conditions for displaced residents who have been living in refugee camps.

 Planning

Hurricane Floyd, according to state flood maps, was a 500-year event, a flood predicted to occur only once in five centuries. So including Hurricane Fran in 1996, the state has experienced two 500-year floods in just three years.

David Moreau, along with faculty and students in the city and regional planning department, took a hard look at the maps. Taking stream-flow data from current state records, some of which go back to 1888, the group will recalculate flood frequency curves and estimate how those curves change when more recent observations are included. Then calculations will be made on how those curves might change if data from the floods caused by hurricanes are included. Estimates will also be made of the uncertainty involved in making predictions about 500-year floods using data that covers only 100 years of observations.

“It will probably be in the spring when we finish,” says Moreau, professor and chair of the department and chairman of the N.C. Environmental Management Commission. “Then we’ll see if that has an effect on the state’s policies.”

David Brower, research professor in the department, is leading the Hazard Mitigation Planning Initiative Group, which has partnerships with several state agencies. This multifaceted program focuses on local planning as a means to mitigate the impacts of natural hazards. A course offered this semester as part of the initiative is providing training to second-year planning students while also furnishing assistance to local governments.

Brower has also been working directly with the state’s Division of Emergency Management since before Hurricane Fran hit, and has developed three separate guides for municipalities to use in their own planning. The state’s hazardous mitigation planning program-with $100-200 million in funds-requires that communities use one of these guidebooks in order to receive grant money.

“Virtually every unit of government that suffered damage from Floyd will have a plan in place that will reduce their vulnerability to future natural hazards,” Brower says. “It’s something that has never been done in this country. We’re really breaking new ground.”

Pamlico Sound

One state policy Carolina researchers hope will change is allowing the Pamlico Sound-the nation’s largest lagoonal estuary-to remain unmonitored. Hans Paerl, professor of marine and environmental sciences, has been leading a handful of faculty, technicians, and graduate students on unfunded cruises around the sound since the hurricane struck. What they’ve found is “unprecedented,” Paerl says. The team didn’t need a microscope to detect Pamlico’s problem. Large brown “fingers” spread across the southwestern portion of the sound-the formation of a chocolate-colored sediment plume associated with flood discharge.

An excessive amount of nutrient-laden fresh water has inundated the normally salty Pamlico Sound, jeopardizing the most important fish nursery and refuge on the East Coast, according to Paerl. Commercial and recreational fishing from Maine to Florida could be affected, and the discharge plume has been proceeding toward Core Sound. The salinity (how salty the water is) has been cut in half in the most affected areas. Shortly after Floyd’s floodwaters reached the sound, a lens of fresh water was capping the salt water, preventing it from mixing. The oxygen then disappeared, creating a “dead zone” at least 40 square miles large. Then Hurricane Irene passed over the sound two weeks later, totally mixing the sound. While this reoxygenated the dead zone, it further “freshened” the entire water column, creating low-salinity stress on fish and shellfish that require much higher salt levels. These findings have been confirmed by the Duke University Marine Lab, which has also been active on the sound since Hurricane Floyd.

“What’s going on with water quality in Pamlico Sound has ramifications that go far beyond scientific curiosity,” Paerl says. “It’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to witness ecological and water quality impacts of a 200-500-year flood event, and provide public and fisheries management information. But it’s also an opportunity for novel scientific research.”

The nutrient content or “load” of the sound is increasing and will continue to increase as long as the runoff persists. Following Hurricane Fran, runoff continued into the spring, and Paerl says Floyd should “easily surpass” Fran. When water temperatures rise and sunlight increases in spring and summer, algal blooms caused by the extra nutrients could create additional environmental problems, including increased potential for low-oxygen conditions in bottom waters, further threatening fish habitats.

“Given the sound is acting like a gigantic bathtub which on average retains water inflow for about a year, it means it will accumulate what will come into it,” says Paerl, adding that most of the water that leaves the sound does so through evaporation. “Usually it’s a good thing, but in this case it quickly becomes a curse.”

Public Health

Students and staff from the School of Public Health (SPH) have seen the tragedy up close. One bus and three vans carried 58 volunteers to Edgecombe and Duplin Counties on Oct. 8. Volunteers in Tarboro in Edgecombe County donned long sleeves and protective masks to empty and decontaminate two flooded homes. Volunteers in Duplin County visited flooded neighborhoods and canvassed residents about their needs. While delivering health and safety information in English and Spanish, the Duplin County volunteers visited 170 residents to assess the recovery relative to water and sanitation, electrical power, and household cleanup and restoration. In the areas most affected, school officials met with many people who were not following safety precautions after the storm.

The School of Public Health established the North Carolina Institute for Public Health last August to provide technical assistance to the public health community. Following Hurricane Floyd, the Institute coordinated relief efforts on behalf of the School. The departments of biostatistics and epidemiology have aided officials in the state’s epidemiology and communicable disease section, screening emergency-room data gathered during and after the hurricane. Faculty, staff, and students have also assisted state and local health officials in sampling water and testing for quality.

“The trip was very valuable for our students, who saw a public health crisis one could not appreciate from just the classroom,” says Rachel Stevens, deputy director of the newly created institute. “All the students I talked with were sorting their own feelings but valuing the experience.”

 Children

Coping with a major hurricane is an emotional time, especially for kids. Thomas Haizlip, director of the Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at Carolina, has helped children cope with the aftermath of hurricanes, tornadoes, the Oklahoma City bombing, and the return of hostages from Kuwait. In the wake of Hurricane Floyd, he has been training mental health professionals in eastern North Carolina and supplying them with materials he has helped develop over the past 15 years. Coloring books targeted to children in fifth grade and younger, for instance, have been distributed to every school hit by the hurricane-more than 80,000 books in all.

Helping the helpers is also important, according to Haizlip. After the Oklahoma City bombing, those who worked around the clock attempting rescues have experienced a high incidence of post-traumatic stress, alcoholism, spouse abuse, child abuse, divorce, and even a high incidence of suicide.

The ERP has also been helping children-especially those forced to live in makeshift refugee camps.

ERP Director Frances Lynn is leading a program in which young people will document-through oral history, photography, creative writing and music-the experience of the flood to help them cope with the trauma.

Economic Recovery

The Office of Economic Development (OED) has been involved with communities in Eastern North Carolina since the department’s creation in July 1998. So when Floyd devastated the region, Mike Luger and his staff were ready to advise government officials on how best to help the area regain its financial footing. The OED is spearheading activity within the Kenan Institute to help the most affected counties rebuild in a manner that would withstand another disaster, but also one with a more sound economic base. This may involve changing the area’s traditional infrastructure and industries such as hog and tobacco farming.

“We can provide some real-world experiences for students,” says Luger, director of OED. “They will intervene in a way that’s meaningful and see the effect of their work.”

Learning from Tragedy

Two dozen Masters of Public Administration students from the Institute of Government spent their fall break in October spread throughout eight different municipalities and counties in flood stricken eastern North Carolina. The students worked with government officials in the recovery effort, evaluating property loss amounts for Federal Emergency Management Association records, writing water quality reports, and instructing residents on the proper procedures for reimbursement.

“We had a meeting after the trip, debriefing the students, and they were overwhelmed with the experience,” says Maureen Berner, assistant professor at the Institute of Government, who helped coordinate the trip. “They are all very committed to a career in public service as a result. Everyone learns, and it’s a very encouraging result from a tragic circumstance.”