Friday, September 17, 1999
Floodwaters create drama on roadways
BY MARK CURNUTTE
The Cincinnati Enquirer
WALLACE, N.C. — The flood water rolling across Interstate 40 was 3 feet deep. John Newkirk's white Ford pickup was too light in the rear to drive safely across. It started floating like a empty bucket into the median. Inside the cab, Mr. Newkirk's daughter and two grandchildren started to panic. The harder he tried to get out, the deeper he got stuck.
Some of the most dramatic scenes of Hurricane Floyd occurred on the roads and highways of the Southeastern United States this week. An estimated 2 million residents of Florida, Georgia, South Carolina and North Caroli na took part in the largest evacuation in U.S. history for a natural disaster. Both lanes of interstate highways were used to ferry people inland.
A Shell service station in Raleigh, which normally sells 27,000 gallons of gasoline a day, sold 96,000 gallons Wednesday during the flight inland.
The drama continued Thursday in Floyd's aftermath. On the 120-mile stretch of Interstate 40 in North Carolina between Raleigh and Wilmington, strangers became acquaintances when floodwaters from swollen creeks rushed across the roadway. Traffic backed up. Drivers got out of cars to discuss the odds of driving through. And there were rescues.
One of the drivers who passed by the Newkirks' pickup was Andrew Waldrop, an enforcement agent with the North Carolina Wildlife Rescue Agency. He put on a pair of hip waders and walked into the rushing water. He carried Mr. Newkirk's two grandchildren, Valencia, 10, and Jajuan, 6, to safety. He then convinced Mr. Newkirk and his daughter, Dosha Newkirk, to abandon their truck and retrieve it later.
“Thank you, thank you,” Ms. Newkirk said.
Earlier Thursday, before Floyd moved out of North Carolina and skies cleared, indecision got Libby Saunders, her son and their cat and dog stuck in flood water near Warsaw, N.C. “I came up thinking I could make it through. Then I thought I should turn around. I guess I waited too long,” said Ms. Saunders, 49, of Little River, S.C.
She sat in her red GEO Tracker. It was stuck in mud beneath 2feet of water on the I-40 median. Every time she hit the gas, bubbles percolated from her exhaust pipe. Her son Michael, 26, pushed unsuccessfully.
After 20 minutes, Pvt. Gregory Signal of the North Carolina Army National Guard drove up in a Hummer. The private crawled into the water to tie a rope to the Tracker.
A few minutes later, Ms. Saunders was out of the muck and ready to be on her way.
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