Samuel Knight, Princevilk's interim town manager, says the town has risen from me floodwaters with new resolve and pride in 

 its history. • Bonnie Baynor, right, helps Troy Ball load crab pots onto his boat near Washington 's Broad Creek. • Guy Sawyer says crab harvests 

 have been down in the Belhaven area since Hurricane Floyd. 



Dennis, Floyd and Irene in 1999. 



In 2004, a team of North Carolina 

 State University scientists and collaborators 

 from several North Carolina universities and 

 government agencies reported their findings to 

 the American Academy of Sciences. 



"The overall story we see is of estuarine 

 resilience to impacts from these types of major 

 storms," says JoAnn Burkholder, director of the 

 NC State Center for Applied Aquatic Ecology, 

 and the paper's lead author. 



The study indicates that water quality, 

 numbers and health of most of the area's 

 shellfish and finfish — and the overall health 

 of the surveyed water systems — appear to be 

 returning to normal. 



The storms also may have displaced 

 undesirable organisms, such as the toxic alga 

 Pfiesteria, linked to massive fish kills in the 

 1990s. The authors theorize that the organisms 

 could have been pushed to areas of the estuary 

 that are less conducive to growth. 



While commercial catches of shrimp or 

 bivalve mollusks, such as clams and scallops, 

 apparently haven't suffered long-term effects 

 from the storms, blue crab numbers remain 

 depressed. 



Sea Grant researcher David Eggleston, 

 who co-authored the paper, attributes the 

 decline to the crabs' interaction with and 

 migration response to the floodwaters — and 

 the overfishing of the mass-migrating crabs. 

 Additionally, Eggleston says, "The floodwaters 

 rushing through inlets may have impeded the 

 crabs' post-larval migration from the ocean to 

 estuarine nursery habitats." 



Proof in 



N.C. Division of Marine Fisheries (DMF) 

 officials also are interested in learning about the 

 cumulative impact of the 1999 hurricane season 

 on the people who rely on those same waters for 

 their livelihoods. 



"A DMF survey is designed to learn how 

 hurricanes impacted peoples' ability to get back 

 on the water and fish," explains Brian Cheuvront, 

 manager of the DMF social economics program. 

 "We also want to find out whether assistance 

 programs helped people get back on their feet and 

 back in business." 



Analysis of the survey is not complete, but 

 Cheuvront has observed that a lot of fishers lost 

 gear or had damage to their boats. Some shellfish 

 leaseholders reported that the bottoms were 

 entirely covered over by sediment or destroyed 

 completely. However, some commercial crabbers 

 saw a bounty of landings in the weeks after Floyd 

 as crabs headed to high-salinity waters. 



That was not the case for Guy Sawyer, whose 

 family has dropped crab pots into the Pungo River 

 for generations. Hurricane Floyd was a turning 

 pint, he says. 'Eloyd was in my house and in my 

 folks' house," he recalls. '1 never have seen anything 

 like it, and I have been on the water all my life." 



Three-foot waves energized the otherwise 

 flat waters of Slades Creek where Sawyer 

 maintains his boats, dock and gear at the edge 

 of family-owned land. Many of the crab pots he 

 thought to be safely stored were washed away. 



"It was weeks before I could get back on the 

 water, and then there was a lot of debris floating 

 around," he says. 



With crab catches down since 2000, Sawyer 

 turned to fishing for flounder and puppy drum to 

 supplement his income. 



He has replaced all his lost pots and is 

 optimistic about filling them with abundant catches 

 this season. It's a way of life he doesn't plan to 

 swap, in spite of all the uncertainties. 



For his part, Bonnie Baynor, a part-time fisher 

 from Washington, doesn't plan to give up his day 

 job. He is a 39-year veteran of Weyerhaeuser. 



When Floyd hit, he and other crabbers along 

 Nannie Smith's Gut, one of many ditches off 

 Broad Creek, pulled up equipment and didn't go 

 back on the water until the following spring. 



Baynor points to a small, rental house he 

 owns. 'It was elevated after Hazel, but Floyd still 

 took the duct work out from under it, along with 

 crab pots I pulled from the water." 



The incoming surge that swamped the small 

 finger of land was bad. But the worst was yet to 

 come. 'Eloodwaters from Tarboro, Washington, 

 Greenville and all rushed through to get to the 

 Pamlico Sound," he recalls. 



It was an awesome sight and proof that no 

 hurricane should be taken for granted, he says. 

 When the storm warning flags fly, Baynor has this 

 advice for fellow watermen: "Get off the river and 

 put into a safe place." 



Hurricane Floyd Impacts in North Carolina 



35 deaths 



$3 billion in damages 



7, 000 homes destroyed 



17,000 homes deemed unihabitable 



56,000 homes damaged 



10,000 people in temporary shelters 



1,500 rescues 



20 AUTUMN 2004 



