Excerpt from | Oral History Interview with Billy Ray Hall, January 20, 2000. Interview K-0509. Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007) |
Hall describes the effects of the flooding, focusing on its cost. He calls Hurricane Floyd "a six billion dollar disaster" but says that North Carolina is still about one billion dollars short of its goal, and that that goal is significantly short of total need. Floyd damaged and destroyed homes—many of which were inhabited by the poor and uninsured—and ruined crops. Flooding so damaged farmland that Hall speculated that "farming is the most at risk as a way of life for being lost in major areas of North Carolina."