Sports
South Brunswick Cougars
scheduled to visit 4A New
Hanover Friday night - 1C
/
Neighbors
Damage was relatively
mild in the Southport-Oak
Island area Thursday — IB
Our Town
Caswell Beach’s sewer
report will be presented to
I board Thursday — Page 2
Photo by Jim Harper
Bill Boyd - “doing what neighbors do” - rigs a tarpaulin to cover the bared side of Ralph
Whitesides’ Caswell Beach living room Saturday with the help of police chief Paul Osborne and
Randy Whitesides. This damage was extraordinary in a storm which generally caused little property
damage and no reported major injury in the community.
Storm salaries
may be funded
washes
ashore
By Richard Nubel
Municipal Editor
The U. S. Army Corps of
Engineers is dumping huge
stumps and blocks of solidi
fied mud on a spoil site three
miles off Yaupon Beach, ru
ining prime shrimping
grounds and threatening area
beaches. <»
That was the charge lev
eled by eight area shrimpers
led by Yaupon Beach fisher
man Billy Hickman, in a
Monday night appearance
before Yaupon Beach com
missioners. “
“If you’ll just take the time
to go down to the beach and
look to your left and look to
your right, you’ll see noth
ing but stumps and tires,”
Hickman said. “It’s simply
not right for them to do what
they’re doing and get away
See Ashore, page 6
By Terry Pope
County Editor
If federal funds become available,
county employees who worked over
time during Hurricane Bertha on July
12 will be paid.
That decision was reached last
week by Brunswick County commis
sioners in a resolution passed before
Hurricane Fran also struck the coast
on Thursday.
It is an issue commissioners say
they wanted resolved by county ad
ministration. But opinions differ on
the use of federal funds for salaries,
and rumors that some county depart
ment heads have already received pay
may have gotten out of hand.
County manager Jim Varner indi
cated he asked the county’s fiscal
operations director, Lithia Home, to
seek Federal Emergency Manage
ment Agency (FEMA) funds so he
could pay workers for overtime. But
nearly two months passed and his re
quest had not been forwarded from
finance to FEMA.
It produced a stalemate between
Varner and Ms. Horne’s department,
forcing commissioners to step in.
“If we could receive the money as
payment from FEMA, and I could
keep (employees) working 30 to 40
hours,” said Varner, “I saw it as the
best of both worlds. He would stay at
work, and he would be paid. We could
have the same number of hours
worked and not fall behind.”
FEMA disaster relief funds are
available to help counties, municipali
ties and property owners deal with the
destruction from natural disasters.
President Bill Clinton signed into law
an order making funds available to a
number of eastern North Carolina
counties, including Brunswick
See Salaries, page 5
Forecast
Our chance of rain and thunder
storms still lingers in the aftermath
of hurricane Fran. There is also a
chance of coastal flooding. Tempera
tures should range in the mid to up
per 80's.
Top STORIES ON THE INTERNET www.soiitliport.net
HURRICANE FRAN
Close call
Hazel still the storm by which others
are measured as Fran skirts Cape Fear
By Jim Harper
Staff Writer
Southport-Oak Island’s second eye-to-eyeball
encounter with a hurricane this year left residents
asking each other. “What did we do to deserve this?”
... and they were talking about their good fortune.
The eye of Hurricane Fran started passing over Brunswick
County, from Bald Head Island to Shallotte, at roughly 9 p.m.
last Thursday after hours of rain and raging northeast wind,
and remained over some portion of the county for two hours
before the “backside" came crashing in from the southwest.
The community had taken a direct hit — in some places the
eye took over an hour to pass — yet by first light Friday it was
apparent that the destruction was no worse than with Hurri
cane Bertha on Julv 12, when the eye of that storm extended
from Lockwood l olly Inlet to Cape Fear.
Though the damage of the two storms was comparable, their
conformation was not. Bertha, ill-formed and irresolute, had
lurched into the area, seemingly headed west of the Cape Fear
mouth, then east ot it, and finally presenting a ragged eye
with diminished wind before sliding off the east beach and
working its wav ashore up the coast.
tiati by cunt,,' > , . ns last few hours at sea driving al
most Straight up 'he /8th meridian - which pracUcalty tuns
through Bald Head lighthouse and the ADM water tank —
and then presenting a classically formed “eye” in which wind
died to an eerie hush before turning and coming back fiercely
off the occur
Some dunuge occurred after that shift — the end of the Long
Beach Pier was ripped off, to wash ashore dozens of blocks
eastward - but the main force of the storm swept like a scythe
up east-facing beaches, ravaging New Hanover County re
sorts before taking a turn back toward the northwest and the
Fayetteville Raleigh-Durham corridor.
Seventeen North Carolinians were killed, nine more died
farther to the northward as the storm spawned tornadoes and
heavy flooding, but according to Cecil Logan, Brunswick
County emergency management director, there were no deaths
and no serious injuries here.
Top wind was measured at 105 miles per hour at 6:45 p.m.
at the waterfront Cape Fear pilot's tower (where a gust from
Bertha had reached 101 miles per hour). From the NOAA of
See Close, page 7
* .
By Richard Nubel
Municipal Editor
For the second time in 55 days
Southport-Oak Island dodged the bul
let.
Hurricane Fran, which wreaked over
$1 billion damage and is blamed for 26
deaths m six states, left the Southport
Oak Island area with barely a scratch.
Damage estimates in Southport-Oak Is
land area municipalities are nearly com
plete and range from only several thou
sand dollars to nearly $1 million.
Even at Long Beach where, because
of its size and building density, costs
may reach the $l-million mark, damage
was scattered. No single area sustained
critical damage.
Mayor Dot Kelly of Yaupon Beach
had a typical reaction Friday:
“I was thrilled when I rode around at
6:30 this morning that there was so little
damage. I am so pleased for everybody.”
No severe injury was reported in the
See Damage, page 7
End-of-course tests
Brunswick's reading,
'rithmetic scores low
By Holly Edwards
Feature Editor
Brunswick County students made
modest gains on most end-of-course
tests for the 1995-96 school year, but
scores on Algebra II and English II
tests were alarmingly low.
“We did not do well in those areas
and we targeted them immediately,”
assistant superintendent for instruc
tion Mary McDuffie told the school
board Monday night. “I always think
it s a danger to think a group of chil
dren is the problem. Perhaps there are
some things we could do better and
some things we could change.”
Only ten percent of Brunswick
County high school students tested
were proficient in English II, down
just slightly from 10.7 percent last
year> and Algebra II scores dropped
ten percentile points from the previ
ous school year — from 48.4 percent
to 38.4 percent.
Percentile points indicate the rela
tive performance of a group of stu
See Scores, page 6
ALGEBRA II
ENGLISH I PHYS. SCIENCE