Putting the past to rest
Published 4:55 pm Friday, September 13, 2019
Monday will mark 20 years since Hurricane Floyd made landfall and battered the Mid-Atlantic region. The flooding in the days that followed devastated downtown Franklin and several other towns on the East Coast. It was a defining moment for our community, but one that is now creeping into the distant past.
As the anniversary has drawn near, we have been asked if The Tidewater News was planning to do a special, commemorative edition to mark the significant numerical milestone. After much internal discussion and soul-searching, the answer turned out to be no. Let us explain.
Yes, the flooding from Hurricane Floyd was a significant event, one that changed the lives of many in the community. But it wasn’t even the most significant event in Western Tidewater that summer. The sale of Union Camp to International Paper just a couple months earlier cost our community over 1,000 high-paying jobs and essentially gutted our middle class. The ramifications of that event are being felt here today in ways that completely overshadow whatever, if any, lingering effects from the flood there may still be.
We would never dream of commemorating that event in a special way. And neither will we do so for the flood. We acknowledge here that they took place and will not be forgotten. We are simply choosing to move on.
Downtown Franklin has recovered from the flood, and is reinventing itself in a way that may even be an improvement on what it was pre-Floyd. The mill has also survived the effects of its change in ownership in 1999. The number of jobs it provides may not be as significant as it was in decades past, but it is again up and running and providing meaningful employment and economic value to the community.
So we choose to look ahead and not back. We choose to celebrate the resiliency of spirit that embodies this community. We applaud those who, despite setbacks, never gave up on this town. And we eagerly look forward to seeing what we will become rather than lament what we no longer are. We invite you to join us in doing so.