By now, residents who evacuated during Hurricane Florence are back home, those who stayed consider a storm a more distant memory and the community as a whole is on its way to recovery. It was a momentous occasion – Mary Nash of the Town’s Emergency Management Team (EMT) says its members haven’t experienced a storm of this magnitude.
Cat-Tales is providing a perspective from inside the gates on how St. James managed the storm and its aftermath.
“Once it became evident the hurricane might have a major impact on our community, the POA began to prepare for recovery,” recalls Don Davis, the community manager who slept on a cot in the POA office for seven days before, during and after the storm. “We rented heavy equipment and staged it in high areas, lowered ponds to their minimum levels, assigned crews to clear potential obstructions from drainage-ways and alerted our major contractors to have additional manpower available following the storm. After the evacuation went into effect, we went to a skeleton security crew, and finally had to close and secure the entrances.”
The POA was one of the partners in the effort to keep St. James as safe as possible and to coordinate recovery efforts.
Bland Landscaping fed onsite workers, as well as other recovery contractors. The town’s EMT was instrumental in keeping the community safe. A number of sheriff deputies, sheltered next door to Dan, also slept on cots.
Mary Nash says several of of the EMT’s 20 members did not evacuate, while others did. It worked out well, she says, because those who evacuated gathered information from the internet, spotty at best in St. James, and shared it with other team members.
According to Mary, volunteer members of the EMT worked non-stop, coordinating town actions with state and county officials and agencies, various utilities, the Sheriff’s Department, the National Weather Service and others involved in disaster response. They were diligent in ensuing that residents were informed.
When St. James lost power, the Town’s emergency generator allowed team member to continue using computers and the internet to communicate and to plan next steps.
After the storm’s first “windy” day, the POA and volunteers from the St. James Fire Department (SJFD) completed an assessment and developed a plan for removing trees from the roads. SJFD volunteers were the first to begin this task, but their efforts soon halted due to hard rains. POA contractors with heavy equipment then took over and worked well into the night. Crews split up the focus on clearing drainageways; they slept on the property and resumed work the next morning.
On the second “rainy” day, the focus changed from cleaning up to a cleanup and a major repair effort. Several section of road, particularly the Green Mile, were washed away by the torrential all-day downpour.
Cameron Pawolczik, the Bland Landscaping account on-site manager worked throughout the rain on Saturday and Sunday. Monday, Kurt Bland, the company’s CEO, drove six hours to get to St. James. The ride from Cary usually takes two hours. But flooding and road washouts caused several detours, often forcing Kurt to join convoys of big trucks to get through high water.
Kurt who jokes his real title during the storm was “CMO – chief morale officer,” knew that feeding folks is an important part of the job after major weather events. His truck was packed with enough food to feed the expected eight core employees. However, he needed more. By Thursday, less than a week after Florence made landfall in Wrightsville Beach on September 13, he had collected enough food to feed more than 30 on-site workers, several from other companies.
“Kurt personally cooked meals for the crews, including other contractors helping with cleanup, using the Community Center kitchen,” Dan says. “It was good to see there were exhausted men eating steak and baked ziti at 8:30 after working 13 hours. There was a shared sense of brotherhood.”
The hurricane’s winds provided a substantial wallop, but the floods added to its punch. “The biggest challenge of the storm’s aftermath will be repairing the infrastructure damaged by the second day of rains,” Dan says. “The first windy day downed a lot of trees (60 in Waterway Park alone), but that would have been a simple, albeit expensive, cleanup. Flooding upped the ante considerably.”
In the coming weeks, work will bring a sense of normalcy to the community. Town of St. James Mayor Jean Toner says town contractors will remove storm debris, the POA will be working on infrastructure repairs and the Clubs will restore its amenities.
Jean says Florence is a storm to be remembered. “I will always remember how well everyone in St. James responded during and after the storm and how very proud I am of everyone in our community,” she says.
Jean reports the SJFD responders and emergency medical services personnel were amazing. “They were available 24/7 and responded during adverse conditions to address medical emergencies, flooding issues and blocked and collapsed roads,” she says. “Many residents who braved the storm and stayed in St. James cleared culverts, removed debris, checked on property damage and shared resources with neighbors.”
Jean says she feels “blessed to live in St. James,” adding, “It’s truly a very special palace, not only because of the wonderful amenities and beautiful surroundings but because of all of the very special people, our friends and neighbors, who call St. James home.”
“There was a great deal of teamwork and camaraderie,” Dan adds. “The town EMT kept the residents updated with information blasts on a regular basis. The POA mitigated the damage with 
boots on the ground and crews jumping into service. Our security people hurried back to provide full coverage by Tuesday morning. And the SJFD served as our ears and eyes, altering us to dangerous situations and actively assisting residents.”
Everyone affected by Florence has learned from the experience. When do you evacuate and how do you prepare to do so? When do you come back if you’ve evacuated? For those who took care of St. James, there were also valuable lessons learned. Mary says the team will perform a debrief when the EMT’s work is done. But from an emergency management perspective, she believes it’s important to be patient, stay in contact with key partners, have a plan and maintain a sense of humor.
Dan adds, “Be prepared, pre-stage as much equipment as you can, evacuate to a place where you can return quickly to begin recovery. Have plenty of food and water and gasoline on hand in advance.”
The POA’s community manager received some well-deserved kudos for the job he did in managing the storm. “Dan Davis went above and beyond the call of duty during Hurricane Florence,” says POA President Jerry Iverson. “He stayed here, sleeping on a cot in the POA office, working 12-14 hours a day. He performed post-hurricane tasks, assessing the damage and opening the roads throughout St. James. He developed a recovery strategy and hired multiple contractors to execute that strategy, resulting in an accelerated recovery. We all owe Dan a debt of gratitude.”