®1 f* Batly (Ear Mrrl
Memories
From Fran
Still Fresh
Hurricane Fran bombarded
the UNC campus in 1996
and left Chapel Hill in
a state of emergency.
By Anne Dahlgren and
Katy Nelson
Staff Writers
Senior Ana Zalacain can still envi
sion the uprooted trees and scattered
debris that covered Ehringhaus field
during Hurricane Fran in 1996.
History Professor William Barney
remembers the sky being a sickening
yellow-green when an oak tree crashed
into his bedroom.
With Hurricane Floyd on the hori
zon, memories of Hurricane Fran are
resurfacing among students and faculty
on campus.
Fran hit the N.C. coast at about 8:15
p.m. on Sept. 5,1996. Three hours later,
Mayor Rosemary Waldorf declared
Chapel Hill in a state of emergency,
which lasted for 4 1/2 days and led for
mer Chancellor Michael Hooker to can
cel classes Friday, Sept. 6.
Students awoke that Friday morning
’jo blocked roadways and power out
ages, just some of the aftershocks that
lit campus after the 79 mph winds
:ame through the night before.
Seniors have vivid recollections of
he disaster, which many said was a hall
nark event of their freshman year.
“Trees were everywhere - through
he baseball field by Ehringhaus and on
he first quad,” said Zalacain, a studio
irt and journalism major from South
Drange, NJ.
It took Barney more than a year
>efore his life returned to normal after
he 55- to 60-ton tree crashed into his
lome.
The tree stopped one to two feet
ibove his bed, causing such extensive
lamage that he and his wife were forced
o move out of their home for a year
ind five days.
“The next morning someone said
>ur bedroom looked like a bomb had
;one off,” Barney said.
Others described a similar scene on
w - ana
DTH FILE PHOTO
Children play on fallen trees in McCorkle Place after Hurricane Fran hit
the campus in September 1996.
campus.
“Late Thursday night it really was
like all hell was breaking loose,” said
senior Adam Smith, a journalism major
from Mebane.
“You could hear trees going down
and transformers blowing (Thursday
evening). We were lucky no trees fell on
our house because there were trees on
houses all around us,” said Tom Nixon,
a reference librarian in Davis Library.
“After Fran had passed at 7 a.m.
Friday, there was no traffic on
University Drive in Durham, which is
very unusual.”
On campus, residence halls experi
enced brief power outages. However,
Odum Village and off-campus housing
lost power for lengthy periods of time.
History Professor Leon Fink said the
disaster caused Chapel Hill and
Carrboro to be “eerily quiet, as if we’d
Tf >
# $2.99 %
BUFFET
ALL-YOU-CAN-EAT
BUFFET EVERYDAY!
PIZZA•PASTA* SALAD*DESSERTS
Come be our guest at:
'a...,-. N
Sr\* CARY H C,C ''* a I DURHAM
" 1 .% 683-F Cary Town. Bl.d. SL g Hill Bhrd.
t |
L*
3 1 Fsrl| 1
CALL YOUR LOCAL STORE FOR GREAT TAKE-OUT VALUES .
® am. pizza i
The Best Pizza Value Anywhere.**
Hurricane Floyd
been plunged back into the time before
Edison.”
Classes resumed Monday, Sept. 9,
but were once again canceled from
noon until 7 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 11,
for a campuswide cleanup.
The relief effort was the idea of for
mer Student Body President Aaron
Nelson. More than 1,000 students par
ticipated in the first hour alone, cleaning
areas by the Old Well and the Coker
Arboretum.
The dining halls remained open all
weekend, and hot showers were avail
able at Fetzer and Wollen Gyms to aid
students and faculty.
Smith said, “I don’t think the
University could’ve handled the situa
tion any better.”
The University Editor can be reached
at udesk@unc.edu.
Hurricanes Old Hat for N.C.
By Kimberly Grabiner
and Lani Harac
Staff Writers
Residents tracking Hurricane Floyd’s
progress toward the Carolina coast say
they can’t help but feel a sense of deja
vu.
The Carolinas are certainly no
strangers to the wrath of hurricanes,
especially during September, the height
of the traditional season for the mon
strous storms.
More than 300 hurricanes and trop
ical storms have hit the U.S. East Coast
during September, more than any other
month, since records began in 1886.
Hurricanes from a Category 4 storm
to August’s Category 2 weakling,
Dennis, have pummeled North
Carolina in the past decade.
Hurricane Bertha, which hit in July
1996, caused about $250 million in
damage.
And Hurricane Bonnie, a Category 3
storm that struck Wilmington in August
1998, left three North Carolina residents
dead and $1 billion in damage.
Hurricane Hugo, a Category 4 storm
like Floyd, killed 86 people when it
struck North and South Carolina in
September 1989.
It also caused more than $9 billion in
damage, $7.1 billion in the Carolinas
alone, according to a National Climatic
Data Center Web site.
Prior to making landfall in
Charleston, S.C., the hurricane scat
tered residents to storm shelters and
outside cities.
Those left behind watched as Hugo
wreaked havoc around them.
Decision on Classes to Come Today
By Arman Anvari
Staff Writer
Interim Chancellor Bill McCoy will
make a decision by noon today on
whether to cancel Thursday’s classes in
wake of an approaching hurricane, a
University official said.
With Hurricane Floyd projected to
skirt the Florida coast and make a bee
line toward North Carolina, officials
have started to make plans regarding the
possible cancellation of classes and evac
uation of off-campus residence halls.
How Hurricanes Blow
Hurricanes are the largest incarnations of Mother Nature's force, with powers destructive
enough to raze cities But the feared storms can also be just really big, bad rainy days.
1 Category 1 hurricanes maintain winds up to 95 mph, with storm stages up to 5 feet
and minimal damage.
■ Category 2 hurricanes are fiercer, with winds up to 110 mph and storm surges of up to
8 feet. Their damage is moderate. Hurricane Dennis is the most recent Category 2 storm to
strike North Carolina.
■ Category 3 hurricanes bring winds 141 to 130 mph and storm surges of up to 12 feel
They cause extensive damage. Hurricane Fran was a Category 3 hurricane
■ Category 4 hurricanes have the power to level houses aid (Kg up the strongest trees.
They blow winds of up to 155 mph and can cause extreme damage 1996's Hurricane Hugo
carried Category 4 winds.
■ Category 5 hurricanes are the most powerful and destructive storms with winds
topping 160 mph and catastrophic damage capabilities.
Janet Tye, a junior nutrition major at
the University of Tennessee-Knoxville,
was a fifth-grader in Charleston when
the storm hit.
“All I could see outside were trees
going back and forth,” she said.
“I thought our house was going to
collapse or something.”
Her family had to clean up fallen
trees as well as shingles blown from the
roof.
They also had to rescreen their porch
and buy anew doghouse.
“It’s expensive (to replace every
thing) because all the prices go up after
the hurricane since it’s all in such
demand,” Tye said.
She was out of school for about 2 1/2
weeks, compared to just one week for
Charlotte-Mecklenburg County stu
dents.
UNC’s Emergency Warning
Committee, a group of campus admin
istrators that meets whenever a poten
tially disastrous situation emerges, will
help McCoy decide whether classes
should be canceled.
Granville Towers General Manager
Dennis Emy sent a letter to all residents
Tuesday notifying them that if
Hurricane Floyd hits, residents should
make arrangements to go home if nec
essary.
University officials sent out an advi
sory e-mail message to all individuals
r
10 & under
Wednesday, September 15, 1999
Amie Keeling, a UNC junior from
Charlotte, dealt with similar damage in
the aftermath of the storm.
“I felt like our house was going to
cave in,” she said. “All our bushes were
rippefl off and floated down the street”
Hurricane Opal, a Category 3 storm,
had winds of up to 150 mph when it hit
the western Carolinas in October 1995.
Opal was responsible for 27 deaths and
more than $3 billion in damage.
Damage from 1996’s Hurricane Fran,
also a Category 3 storm, was not as cost
ly as Hugo’s, but it hit the Triangle area
almost as hard.
Fran, which was clocked at 115 mph
at its peak in September 1996, caused 37
deaths and $5 billion in damages.
The State & National Editor can be
reached at stntdesk@unc.edu.
affiliated with UNC on Tuesday night
notifying them of weather hazards.
Officials will disseminate the final
decision as soon as it is available to them
this afternoon via television, radio and
the Internet, Kitchen said.
Classes were canceled Sept. 6 when
Hurricane Fran hit Chapel Hill in 1996.
Classes were canceled again later that
week as students banded together to
clean up the debris on campus.
The University Editor can be reached
at udesk@unc.edu.
5