Gov. Cooper promises tornado victims NC will do ‘everything we can’ to help

Gov. Roy Cooper stared at the pile of wreckage where an elderly couple rode out a tornado while huddled in their bathtub. As he surveyed flattened walls lying 50 feet away, he asked a question:

“How did they survive?”

Next to him, Nash County’s Emergency Management Director Tony Cameron had an answer.

“The Good Lord above.”

Cooper toured five spots Sunday hit hardest by Wednesday’s powerful twister, inspecting the 15-mile stretch between Dortches and Battleboro where the storm hop-scotched a devastating path, tearing up both Nash and Edgecombe counties.

Cooper grew up in Nash County and attended high school not far from the heaviest damage. “There’s hardly a place in the Nash area where I didn’t ride my bicycle,” he said as he stepped around the rubble and stacked tree trunks.

“People care about each other in Nash and Edgecome counties, and I can vouch for that,” he continued. “We’re glad they’re alive. We’ll do everything we can from a state and federal perspective to help them in any way.”

NC Emergency Management Director William Ray, standing alongside Cooper outside a house with a blue tarp for a roof, said the state will start assessing damage totals Monday in preparation for seeking federal aid.

The General Assembly has historically done well at filling gaps when federal thresholds aren’t met, Cooper said, and charities are already pitching in.

The governor marveled that no one died in Wednesday’s tornado despite dozens of injuries. And he celebrated that the last of those injured in the storm were released from area hospitals and all but one damaged road was reopened.

Cooper also praised the Pfizer plant in Rocky Mount for pledging to continue paying employees and contractors while production gets restored.

“This is an example of the way emergency management and operations should work,” he said, praising victims for heeding tornado warnings and taking shelter. “I think the people who are affected by the storm did the right things.”

That said, Cooper saw evidence that dozens of families’ lives remain upended.

Cooper stopped at Evelyn Powell’s place in Battleboro, where she described herself as thankful, despite the storm tearing scattering her belongings across the yard. Her husband had just heard the storm warning and had his hand on the doorknob when the twister lifted the roof off over his head, leaving him incredulous on the ground.

Cooper saw a house outside Dortches Town Hall where the damage was so extensive that blankets and quilts from inside were still hanging from tree branches 20 feet high. With no walls across the front, every room in the house was visible from the street 50 feet away.

“It’s devastating,” the governor said.

Vicki and Steve Crong operate Puckett’s Mobile Village, one spot where the governor saw damage up close. The elderly couple that hid in their bathtub had to be pulled out of the pile of debris after the tornado uprooted their home.

They are recovering, but they had no insurance and had their saving wrapped up in their mobile home, whose remains were in a pile near the governor’s feet.

“They’re mostly seniors out here,” said Steve Crong, “and they need help.”

Flanked by sheriffs, city councilmen and a string of emergency officials, Cooper assured them he could.