Those who could least afford it often seemed hardest hit. In Greenville, the south side of town is higher and withstood the spreading waters better than the poorer north side. The campus of East Carolina University, while hit with several million dollars of damage, has been repaired and we are operating the same as ever. We missed nine days of classes, but we rearranged our calendar to recover all but four of those. Many in eastern North Carolina may never recover fully.
Rumors make things worse.
As bad as Floyd was, unchecked imaginations and unverified recounting painted an even-grimmer picture. All of us who live in the east heard from elsewhere the false tale about the scores of bodies trapped in homes. All of us had particular rumors to combat. For ECU, first there were persistent reports that we had canceled the entire fall semester. Now, many people believe the campus is wrecked or that we are still under water.