Certainly Hurricane Floyd was the most devastating storm of the 1999 hurricane season. The storm dumped 20 inches of rain on some parts of Eastern North Carolina, already waterlogged from the rain brought by Hurricane Dennis that had swept through only days before. Simply put, the soaked ground could not handle the water.

Photo by the Goldsboro News Argus

The historic flooding brought by Hurricane Floyd turned into the worst natural disaster ever to hit North Carolina. In dollar figures, it did some $6 billion in insured and uninsured damage.

The damage was made worse by the fact that few people had flood insurance. In fact, only some 13 percent of homeowners had it. Many people labored under the misconception that their homeowners insurance policies would cover damage from high water.

The mass evacuation of people along the eastern seaboard in anticipation of Floyd?s arrival was the largest peacetime evacuation ever. By the time the storm made landfall at Cape Fear, 227 emergency shelters were open in North Carolina with more than 45,000 people in them. At the peak of the need, more than 62,000 people had sought shelter. Another estimated 41,000 or more sought shelter in inland motels, with family and friends and at non-state shelters.

The storm affected some 2.1 million people in one way or another. President Bill Clinton, in response to a request from Governor Jim Hunt, declared 66 North Carolina counties major disaster areas.

The scope of the disaster covered an area larger than the state of Maryland. The most severe damage came in the counties east of Interstate 95. Twenty-seven of the 66 disaster-declared counties faced severe flood damage, and some 30 downtowns were entirely underwater.

Here is an overview of Floyd by the numbers.

• Hurricane Floyd did an estimated $6 billion in insured and uninsured damage.
  
  
• More than 87,500 people registered with FEMA as victims of the storm.
  
  
• Ultimately, the storm damaged more than 67,000 homes in some way. It destroyed some 8,000.
  
  
• Approximately 12,000 businesses reported some sort of loss.
  
  
• More than 1.5 million homes and businesses lost power. Two weeks after the storm, nearly 8,000 still had no electricity. Most of those were considered unconnectable, because they were still submerged, or they were so severely damaged that power could never be restored to the structure again unless extensive repairs were made.
  
  
• Agriculture losses exceeded $830 million. Approximately 2.8 million poultry, 2,000 cattle, 250 horses and more than 30,500 hogs drowned. Tobacco in the field was ruined by wind and flooding while leaf in curing barns was destroyed when the barns lost electricity. Much of the harvested and cured crop was flooded in warehouses. Damage to farm structures accounted for $280 million.
  
  
• Floodwaters contaminated 2,800 wells and 14 public water systems.
  
  
• Twenty-four waste water treatment plants had to close a result of the flooding.
  
  
• Three schools were destroyed and many others damaged.
  
  
• Eight junkyards flooded.
  
  
• There were 101 dams that sustained damage. Forty of those failed and 61 sustained significant damage. Twenty-five were placed on the Department of Environment and Natural Resources ?must fix or breach? list as high-hazard dams.
  
  
• There were more than 600 Underground Storage Tank sites within the flood zone. Of those, 130 actually flooded.
  
  
• The flood closed roads and bridges in more than 1,000 places.
  
  
• The North Carolina Department of Transportation deployed more than 2,500 workers and 2,000 pieces of equipment to repair damage at 2,067 sites.
  
  
• More than 700 roads were damaged.
  
  
• Floodwaters pulled more than 225 caskets from the ground. The caskets were carried downstream by the flood. All had to be found, the bodies inside identified and the remains returned to the families for reburial.

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