Brunswick Post 68 beats
Wilmington in Legion play
offs, meets Whiteville — 1C

Long Beach
Bertha
reaction
reviewed
By Richard Nubel
Municipal Editor
While the efforts of town staff,
elected officials and volunteers
before, during and after Hurricane
Bertha won high praise from most
attending Tuesday night’s meeting
of Long Beach Town Council, coun
cilor Helen Cashwell said the “dis
satisfaction of citizens” warranted a
council "post-mortem” review of
civil preparedness plans.
Specifically. Cashwell said the
town should devise ways to keep
citizens better informed of condi
tions at home if they evacuate and
find a way to facilitate reentry for
Long Beach residents and property
owners.
"What I am most concerned about
is everyone has said they will not
leave next time," Cashwell told fel
low councilors. “The reason for that
was the time it took to get back on.”
Several told council of being
caught in traffic backed up as far as
Sunny Point intersection as an esti
mated 20,000 persons awaited the
reQpening^pf.Qak Isjund^ bridge _at(.
noon Saturday.
“The first thing is letting the prop
erty owners back on first and
tourists last, easnwell said.
Mayor Joan Altman said the
reopening of the Oak Island bridge
to all traffic less than 24 hours after
Bertha struck was "remarkable."
She said county and municipal offi
cials managing hurricane response
efforts handled their responsibilities
well.
“Certainly evacuation and reentry
is very stressful,” Altman said. “It
look the storm longer to get here and
left us coming back on the worst day
possible, a Saturday” when rental
cottages traditionally change occu
pants
Altman said Brunswick County
olficuls make the decisions as to
when the bridge will be closed to
traffic and when it will reopen based
on the time emergency managers
led it will take to accommodate
trailic.
"In the final analysis, everyone
was allowed back on the island,
with full services, less than 24 hours
altei the storm hit, which I think is
remarkable," Altman said.
But. Cashwell said the town’s civil
preparedness plan had not been
updated since 1994 and did not
address communications with evac
See Long Beach, Page 9
We were luckv'
Big Bertha shift spares area
City electrician Lou Cabral disengages wiring at Southport’
Whittlers Bench near the peak of Hurricane Bertha’s visit here Friday
City officials were concerned that high winds might drop electric lines
Photo by Jim Harper
i the aluminum pole and street light onto gawker traffic which circled the
. bench during much of the blow. The storm ultimately destroyed the tree
, (see related photo, second section; “The Way It Was”).
SOME STAYED HOME
Storm became
serious threat
By Holly Edwards
Feature Editor \ ^ ' '
Hurricane Bertha didn’t appear to be much of a threat Thurs
day when a mandatory evacuation was ordered for Oak Island.
Although most island residents and visitors headed inland, an
estimated 500 to 1,000 people remained in Long Beach, about
150 people remained in Yaupon Beach and fewer than 100 people
remained in Caswell Beach.
However, those who weathered the storm said that by late Fri
See Threat, page 6
BRUNSWICK COUNTY
Major damage
to county crops
By Terry Pope
County Editor
Hurricane Bertha’s zigzag be
havior kept county officials guess
ing, but they are glad the moody
storm zigged instead of zagged
when it finally reached the
Brunswick coast.
“We are lucky,” said Cecil
Logan, Brunswick County emer
gency management coordinator.
“We survived extremely well consid
ering the type of storm we were deal
ing with.”
Bertha’s northward route chosen
just miles before reaching the
Brunswick shoreline sent the less
volatile western edge of the category
2 hurricane bullying its way across
the county. That portion of the storm
still packed enough hurricane
strength winds to rape farm crops to
See Crops, page 6
Highest winds
just off coast
of Bald Head
By Richard Nubel
Municipal Editor
You couldn't buy a lot and build a
beachfront cottage for the dollar-dam
age done to any one of the Oak Is
land towns by Hurricane Bertha last
Friday.
You couldn’t touch one of the
stately historic district homes on Bay
Street for what it will cost to replace
Bertha-born structural damage in
Southport.
Not only was structural damage at
tributable to Bertha light, the Oak Is
land beaches actually benefited in a
way. Long Beach, Yaupon Beach and
Caswell Beach officials all report
Bertha brought with her a fresh and
sorely needed new blanket of sand.
Ecretion, not erosion, was Bertha’s
legacy to the beachfront.
Southport-Oak Island was lucky.
Bertha barreled her way squarely to
ward the Cape Fear coast at midday
Friday, jogging eastwardly at the last
moment, projecting most of her ir
regularly shaped fury just north of
Wilmington. While an area of the
wide eye of the Category 2 hurricane
passed over Southport-Oak Island,
sections or Pleasure Island, burl c ity
and Topsail Island took Bertha's best
105-mile-per-hour punches
“It could have been different," said
Long Beach public works director
Charles Derrick, a veteran of Hurri
cane Diana in 1984 and one of those
detailed to Homestead, FL, after Hur
ricane Andrew in 1994, “Had that
storm not moved at the last moment,
we’d be like Topsail Beach and Surf
City are today.”
As it happened, Southport-Oak Is
land caught the much weaker side of
Bertha's soft underbelly.
And damage was, thankfully, light.
Where damage estimates at Long
Beach after Hurricane Diana rose to
around $16 million, structural dam
age at Long Beach Saturday morn
ing was estimated at a mere $ 167,000,
code enforcement officer David
Clemmons said.
Structural damage at Yaupon Beach
was estimated at under $80,(MX) and
at Caswell Beach the damage esti
mate was $226,300 — all of it along
Caswell Beach Road. No structural
damage was reported at Bertha’s hand
See Bertha, page 6
Forecast
W hile clean up from the hurricane
continues we can expect a chance of
showers and thunderstorms for the
rest of the week. Temperatures will
reach the upper 8()'s.
INSIDE
Opinion. 4
Obituaries ..... 11
Business.12
District Court .. 13
Police report ... 14
Church.4B
TV schedule .... 6B
Plant Doctor ... 8B
'Zoning for special projects
Leland develops new approach
By Terry Pope
County Editor
The rezoning of more than 1,500 acres at Jackey’s Creek
near Belville signals a growing trend for new housing in north
ern Brunswick County.
Golf course communities and planned unit developments are
on the way; the number of mobile homes may dwindle.
“Leland is on the verge of undergoing major change," said
Don Eggert, planner II with the Brunswick County Planning
Department. “If this is built at Jackey's Creek, you’re looking
at several hundreds of housing units initially. The whole Leland
area, what I call the Northwest Township, is growing.”
The Brunswick County Board of Commissioners has ap
proved the rezoning of Jackey’s Creek from Rural designation
to Site-Built Residential 6000 (SBR-6000), which will allow
greater density of houses where sewer and water is available.
But it also prohibits mobile homes.
SBR-6000 is a new zoning designation which also accom
modates planned unit developments like those now found at St.
James Plantation, Sea Trail Plantation and Ocean Ridge Planta
tion. It allows a mixture of recreational areas, wooded areas,
multi-tamily housing and single-family units.
Jackey’s Creek is the second large tract near Belville rezoned
to SBR-6000 this year. Another 800-acre tract next to Lincoln
Industrial Park was rezoned earlier from Heavy Manufacturing
(HM) to make way for another proposed golf course and hous
ing community there. Jackey’s Creek extends from U S. 17 to
N C. 133 (River Road).
"I know that entire area is really, really growing,” said Judy
Russell, zoning administrator with the Brunswick County Plan
ning Department. “It has to do with sewer being available. In
these large projects, the developers have indicated they plan to
tap onto the Belville sewer plant.”
A third Leland area community also wants to take advantage
of SBR-6000 zoning but for a different reason. Residents of
Home Place Estates and the Ira D. Butler subdivisions, along
See Leland, page 10
‘I remember all during the
planning board meetings and at the
public hearing, the comment from
the people is that Leland wants that
kind of development. I think that
entire area is getting ready to
explode.’
Judy Russell
Zoning administrator
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