Alan Gurganus, one of North Carolina's finest writers, has
written a wonderful and compelling piece for the New York Times on what will
become known around here as The Flood. We will talk from time to time
about a recent 'the flood' but we'll likely never surpass The Flood. We hope not
anyway.
This is a great read and deserves to be read by a lot of people. It touches
on a lot of stuff, including the lingering, now massively worsened poverty Down
East, the likely pullout of the few employers who are there now anyway,
likely soon off to Mexico rather than rebuilding, and most touchingly the
ties between people. He recounts the hat passed at UNC which came back
with over 100,000 dollars, and people washing clothes for one another and a
thousand random kindnesses really.
As you can see from this story, things aren't much better. This story is
going to be pushed off stage by something else, but the suffering is still there
and still real.