Fair Bluff recovers little since Hurricane Matthew

FAIR BLUFF, NC (WWAY) — It’s been nearly four months since Hurricane Matthew ripped across southeastern North Carolina.

One of the hardest hit places was Fair Bluff, located along the Lumber River.

The town saw historic river flooding during early October as Matthew dropped significant rainfall on an already saturated area.

Friday, downtown Fair Bluff still looked the same as it did when the storm first hit.

“We are really feeling the aftermath,” resident Natalie Rickman said.

Natalie has lived here for more than 15 years and says she can’t believe this happened to her home.

“It’s eerie because it all used to be open and you look in the windows and everything is gone,” Rickman said. “It makes you feel like crying. We want our town back, you know, the businesses back. It was like family.”

Kellie Bosewell works at Yoko’s Hibachi which is the one of the only places that has reopened.

“You see the lights and the little sign and people are like ‘Thank God, you’re open,'” Bosewell.

“You never can lose hope,” Rickman said. “I have faith that we can come together as a town and rebuild.”

While hope is in most hearts, concerns have set in with the slow progress so far.

“I’m slightly worried about how things are going to be around here because I have heard rumors that if business doesn’t come back here soon and things don’t pick back up everything is going to shut down,” Boswell said.

Fair Bluff and other areas near Lumberton suffered tremendous property damage and were inaccessible for days. Hurricane Matthew left billions of dollars in damage and 32 deaths in the Carolinas.