“margin: 0in; margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: 15.6pt;”>

SOUTH CREEK, 

“list-style-position: initial; list-style-image: initial;”>N.C. 

— For Mavis Powers, a lifetime of work and keepsakes were washed

away when Hurricane Irene drove a 13-foot storm surge up Muddy

Creek and through her home.

“margin: 0in; margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: 15.6pt; list-style-position: initial; list-style-image: initial;”>

The 77-year-old doll maker and collector

held her head Sunday as she assessed her ruined house. Her

82-year-old husband, a World War II Marine made frail by age, sat

on the front porch, trying to stay cool in the heat and slowly

inhaling in the oxygen he needs to breathe.

“margin: 0in; margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: 15.6pt; list-style-position: initial; list-style-image: initial;”>

Powers had hooked up his last tank that

morning, and she worried he might run out soon.

“margin: 0in; margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: 15.6pt; list-style-position: initial; list-style-image: initial;”>

As the wind-driven water began to lash

at the glass back doors of her house early Saturday morning, Powers

said she pressed her body against them to try to keep it

out.

“margin: 0in; margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: 15.6pt; list-style-position: initial; list-style-image: initial;”>

“A big wave came in and took the doors

and me and the dining room and pushed everything into the living

room,” she said. “That was an 

“list-style-position: initial; list-style-image: initial;”>experience.”

“margin: 0in; margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: 15.6pt; list-style-position: initial; list-style-image: initial;”>

Powers was among scores of homeowners

who suffered serious flooding in and around the small town of

Aurora, located on a peninsula jutting out into the Pamlico Sound.

Chief Kevin Bonner of Aurora Fire and Rescue said his department

pulled 48 residents from their flooded homes during the

storm.

“margin: 0in; margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: 15.6pt; list-style-position: initial; list-style-image: initial;”>

At an area on the the Pamlico River

coastline called Hickory Point, more than 200 homes were ruined,

many missing walls or flattened by the storm surge. Large

commercial fishing boats lay on their sides, rolled by the force of

the hurricane. Bonner said the homes were searched late in the day

and those who had stayed said they didn’t believe anyone was

missing.

“margin: 0in; margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: 15.6pt; list-style-position: initial; list-style-image: initial;”>

Located well inland from Irene’s center,

few residents in South Creek heeded the call to evacuate as the

hurricane approached.

“margin: 0in; margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: 15.6pt; list-style-position: initial; list-style-image: initial;”>

The surge rose so fast, few had time to

flee. It then receded nearly as quickly, leaving devastated homes

in its wake.

“margin: 0in; margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: 15.6pt; list-style-position: initial; list-style-image: initial;”>

Many residents spent the day after the

storm laying out family photos, rugs, clothes and other belongings

in the sun to dry. As is typically the case after a hurricane

passes, there was not a cloud in the sky.

“margin: 0in; margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: 15.6pt; list-style-position: initial; list-style-image: initial;”>

Residents in South Creek said they had

not seen anybody from the state or federal government on Sunday,

though National Guard troops were nearby in Aurora.

“margin: 0in; margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: 15.6pt; list-style-position: initial; list-style-image: initial;”>

People who had working cell phones were

trying to contact their insurance companies.

“margin: 0in; margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: 15.6pt; list-style-position: initial; list-style-image: initial;”>

Joenisha Brown, 27, waded out in the

chest-deep water surrounding her house during the storm to take

shelter in the nearby Jones Chapel Free Will Baptist Church. Her

four children — ages 8, 6, 5, and 3 — clung to her neck and

arms.

“margin: 0in; margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: 15.6pt; list-style-position: initial; list-style-image: initial;”>

“I just sort of picked them up and towed

them out,” she said Sunday. “When you see water like that coming,

you have to get 

“list-style-position: initial; list-style-image: initial;”>out.”

“margin: 0in; margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: 15.6pt; list-style-position: initial; list-style-image: initial;”>

Brown had not yet been able to return to

her house. Large trees fell across most of the roads in and around

town and many were still blocked.

“margin: 0in; margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: 15.6pt; list-style-position: initial; list-style-image: initial;”>

Local officials used boats to try to

check on people they hadn’t heard from yet.

“margin: 0in; margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: 15.6pt; list-style-position: initial; list-style-image: initial;”>

The storm tore away docks and washed

some boats as much as a quarter-mile inland. One man was still

searching for a 53-foot-pleasure yacht that broke from its moorings

and drifted away.

“margin: 0in; margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: 15.6pt; list-style-position: initial; list-style-image: initial;”>

Workers at the nearby Carolina Fisheries

farm scrambled to keep alive more that 2 million fish growing in 47

big outdoor ponds that need electric aerators to oxygenate the

water.

“margin: 0in; margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: 15.6pt; list-style-position: initial; list-style-image: initial;”>

All the farm’s equipment, including its

big emergency generators, were swamped.

“margin: 0in; margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: 15.6pt; list-style-position: initial; list-style-image: initial;”>

Michael Lannon, 49, got 4 feet of water

into the house he had just finished remolding. He and his wife rode

out the storm in a second floor bedroom with three dogs, a cat and

a cockatiel.

“margin: 0in; margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: 15.6pt; list-style-position: initial; list-style-image: initial;”>

As the water rose, he swam out to catch

his boat, which had floated off its trailer in the garage, and tie

it to a tree.

“margin: 0in; margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: 15.6pt; list-style-position: initial; list-style-image: initial;”>

He worked in his yard Sunday to get one

of his three flooded-out vehicles to run.

“margin: 0in; margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: 15.6pt; list-style-position: initial; list-style-image: initial;”>

“They tell you not to touch anything

until the insurance man comes and sees it,” he said. “But I think I

can get this old Dodge running. It doesn’t have all those

electronics in it like my new 

“list-style-position: initial; list-style-image: initial;”>truck.”

“margin: 0in; margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: 15.6pt; list-style-position: initial; list-style-image: initial;”>

Powers tried to find as many of her 800

dolls as she could and laid them carefully in the sun to dry. Many

she had made herself, while others were collected from all over the

word.

“margin: 0in; margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: 15.6pt; list-style-position: initial; list-style-image: initial;”>

Her favorite was one her mother had made

her after her wedding day, the doll’s dress sewn from the lace of

Powers’ veil. It was nowhere to be found.

“margin: 0in; margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: 15.6pt; list-style-position: initial; list-style-image: initial;”>

Born in a house across the street,

Powers said the worst flooding there anyone had seen came from

Hurricane Floyd in 1999. After that storm washed water into the

crawl space under her house, she paid to have the structure jacked

up on a new foundation 9 feet above the level of the nearby tidal

basin at high tide.

“margin: 0in; margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: 15.6pt; list-style-position: initial; list-style-image: initial;”>

It wasn’t enough to weather

Irene. The line marking the water’s depth inside her home

was more than 3 feet up the interior walls.

“margin: 0in; margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: 15.6pt; list-style-position: initial; list-style-image: initial;”>

“Maybe this is something that happens

once a lifetime,” she said. “In my case, I certainly

hope 

“list-style-position: initial; list-style-image: initial;”>so.”

• Michael Biesecker Associated Press