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(The problem isn't having the supplies to send, it's getting the transport to do it. Please contribute as much as you can to help, contact the American Red Cross http:www.redcross.org)

A letter to the DRUDGE REPORT says too much about the disaster:

Dear Mr. Drudge,

The enormity of the calamity that has stricken eastern North Carolina is not comprehended by the national media, federal government officials or American citizens in general.

My town of New Bern, NC, was one of the few east of I-95 spared by most of the mind-boggling levels of flooding in the aftermath of Hurricanes Dennis and Floyd. But from my vantage point, I see a level of destruction and suffering throughout the Coastal Plain region of the state that is indescribable.

The flood has been categorized by government officials and by meteorologists and other scientists as a 500-year or 1,000-year flood. Ironically, most of the areas swamped by the deluge are not even in so-called "flood plains."

The flood is evolving into a catastrophe of Biblical proportions. As the waters slowly subside over the eastern section of the state, corpses are being discovered in buildings, automobiles, trees, etc. You can expect the official death toll to climb in coming days and weeks as thousands of square miles of submerged towns and rural areas emerge from the slowly waning flood.

In addition, millions of drowned farm animals and hundreds of millions of gallons of animal manure spilled from the waste pits of giant hog and poultry factories combined with unprecedented spills of petroleum products, chemicals and assorted toxic substances may well result in an unimaginable environmental disaster.

The destruction suffered by industry, agriculture and other enterprises; the loss of wages as a result of flooded factories and businesses; and the damage to highways, bridges, water plants, utility plants and other infrastructure may well be in the tens of billions of dollars.

Tens of thousands of the people who survived, including those in shelters as well as those in residences isolated by surrounding flood waters, are living like third-world refugees and peasants. When the waters recede, their existence will continue to be pitiful because much of eastern North Carolina will be like a war-ravaged wasteland for months or even years.

Billions of dollars and untold military manpower and assets have been committed by the United States to remote countries all over the world in recent years for political, economic and security reasons. I fail to comprehend why a massive effort on a similar scale isn't under way at this moment to help relieve the misery, bring about stability, safety and sanitation, and assist with the recovery and reconstruction of a region of the American South that is undergoing human suffering on a scale not seen since the Civil War.

The purpose of this message is to bring this desperate situation to your attention. In my opinion, the response of federal agencies to this enormous and ongoing tragedy has been too slow and too meager. I suspect this is because the responsible authorities, though well-meaning, have yet to grasp the apocalyptic scale of the flood and the incredible consequences that are only now becoming apparent.

If you decide to research the situation, as I hope you will, please get your information from the local broadcast and print media in eastern North Carolina, not from the national media. The national media has attempted to frankly report the flooding but they tend to focus on the dire straits of a single town or area without imparting to the public the overwhelming reality that the disaster afflicting the locality they are reporting from is duplicated in towns, villages and farmlands that cover a third of the entire state.

Eastern North Carolina needs help much more rapidly, on a scale far more massive and with a sense of urgency far more acute than what seems to be coming forth so far. Please help get the word out, Drudge.

Respectfully,

New Bern, NC

* * * * *

-- Forrest Covington (theforrest@mindspring.com), September 28, 1999

Answers

Meanwhile, the national news moves on to "newer" stories...

The region needs a massive cleanup effort. We need to be able to hire people who are willing to do a messy, dangerous cleanup. Now. We also need to look (at a minimum) at a massive infrastructure reconstruction.

I lived in the region for "half" a time, and found the people warm and friendly. The US has the resources to do the cleanup...and get the region back up to speed. The question is: does the political will exist in Washington, or not?

-- Mad Monk (madmonk@hawaiian.net), September 28, 1999.

The question to ask is "Can there be any recovery and repair to the Eastern NC region in the next ninety days?"

I had always seen the coastal plain of North Carolina being an area where, should massive southern migrations by northern refugees occur, that settlement would begin to occur. Now the area is going to be a "dead zone", economically and environmentally if a major Y2K civilization crash sends people heading southward down the east coast.

Who ever said it is right, Y2K doesn't occur in a vacuum. And Mother Nature has made one input. What's next?

WW

-- Wildweasel (vtmldm@epix.net), September 28, 1999.

Note: Local reports have mentioned that massive chemical and biological contamination of the groundwater will persist for years. Among the chemicals released are mercury, arsenic, nitrate fertilizers, gasoline and fuel oil. Most of the residents rely on wellwater, the soil is sandy and natural water is brackish at best. The costs of this cleanup are way beyond NC's capacity, we are talking about millions of dollars spread over years. The hog farm and chemical companies are going to be sued, no doubt, to recover some of these costs. The litigation will probably go on longer than the cleanup.

This is just one third of one state. We had all better hope the pollies are right about the embedded chips.

-- Forrest Covington (theforrest@mindspring.com), September 28, 1999.

When Hurricane Floyd was bearing down on SC, hundreds of thousands of people sat stranded in their cars while state officials argued with the coastal cities mayors for hours over whether to open reversible lanes on the interstate. The solution to the problem was obvious to all except the bureaucrats, who exacerbated an already bad situation. A six hour evacuation to Charlotte took my neighbor 23 hours. Some died of complications such as heart attacks and stroke while waiting in traffic.

Y2K will be a much worse crisis than a hurricane. I expect the government handling of it to be much worse also.

-- a (a@a.a), September 28, 1999.

I would be interested in hearing any information anyone local has about the mercury spill. Very little has been reported on this issue, which I would think is even more deadly than all the others put together. If that one escapes what was being reported as containment there will have to be evacuations.

-- Shelia (Shelia@active-stream.com), September 29, 1999.

The New Bern resident is right. I haven't personally seen the areas but the footage and interviews can't all be exaggerated. Even if only half the stories are true, this situation is catastrophic; people keep saying "biblical proportions."

Two good Floyd news sources out of Raleigh:

http://www.wral-tv.com/news/wral/

See also Floyd coverage sidebarred on right of page, complete info on where to send donations to individual towns, link to small Floyd forum.

http://www.news-observer.com/nc_index.html

Good search engine. Just plug in "Floyd."

-- Old Git (anon@spamproblems.com), September 29, 1999.

a@a.a --

Must disagree, most decidedly. And I do have a definite clue. Am right dead in the middle of this mess, unlike others who have posted from areas outside the disaster area.

Y2k will at worst be a faint echo of what has happened here in the past week-and-a-half.

Some comparisons of this disaster to Y2k are warranted. Many others are NOT.

A computer glitch cannot:

 cause rivers to rise to levels not seen since before Columbus discovered America....maybe not seen since Noah rode in the ark, who knows

 cause winds in excess of 110 MPH; knock down trees, tear roofs off houses, etc.

 cause a region to receive 30 inches of rain in three weeks, where 45 inches is the yearly average

 drown hundreds of people, millions of animals, and at least a $billion in crops. (Yes, I know the media says only 40-some people dead, but there are many more not yet reported. I have this on good 'grapevine' authority. I live here, am a native, know people who know things. Family members who are hospital employees, for example.)

Come stay here for a few weeks, and you'll see what I'm talking about -- if you have your eyes and mind open, that is.

Maybe if you want to know what's going on in eastern NC, and compare current events in eastern NC to other scenarios -- maybe you need to ask an eastern NC native. Just maybe. Eyewitness and experiential fact as opposed to armchair theory, in other words. 'Government handling' of this crisis where I live has been exemplary, as has been the behavior of the vast majority of the populace...people who are able have helped their less fortunate neighbors in a BIG way;

in a COMPLETE refutation of the Doomer view of how people will react in a crisis, BTW. This situation in eastern NC blows yet another Doomer theory all to hell....

***

Git, you're right. Have to agree with you for once. "Biblical proportions" is correct. And I'm a daily eyewitness.

But we'll pull through. Them Tar Heels is tough.

-- Chicken Little (panic@forthebirds.net), September 29, 1999.