Duty calls in ice storm's wake

Security Officer F.L. Moore is known as "Mr. Fred" to the regular patrons of Woollen Gym, and you would have to see him to know what that means.

He is a pleasant man, but he has a booming voice and a wide girth that seem to amplify the authority he wields from his uniform and badge.

When he tells people to do something, he generally doesn't have to ask twice.

On the afternoon of Dec. 6, a Friday, Moore arrived at Woollen for his regular 2 p.m. shift that was supposed to end at 11 p.m. But the thud of basketballs was missing. Cots filled the courts instead.

Moore, 57, a retired Air Force policeman, has worked at the University for the past 11 years. He would end up spending a good part of the next three days at the gym, directing people to the ice machines in the basement, or to the showers, or just to stand watch over them as they slept.

"It was my house," Moore said, and he did all he could do to make families who were there feel welcome -- and secure.

"There were a lot of people who wanted to talk," Moore said. Being the kind of person who likes to meet people, he happily obliged them.

After coming into work Friday afternoon, Moore ended up working until 2 a.m. Saturday, then drove back to work at 6 a.m. Sunday to begin another 12-hour shift.

"I feel good there was a way I could help," he said.

Moore's home in Raleigh didn't get power restored until Dec. 8, the Sunday he was at work at the shelter. Moore kept his family warm for the duration by firing up the fireplace in his den. He didn't have a woodpile next to his house, just a chainsaw and an oak tree in his neighbor's yard that fell in the storm.

In emergency situations, he said, you learn to make do with what you've got.

Employees come through
Moore was among dozens of University employees who drew extra duty to keep Carolina up and running even as so much of the region shut down under the crippling weight of one of the worst ice storms in state history.

You could count more fallen limbs than people on campus Thursday, when the campus was officially closed.

But the day off didn't apply to some, especially the crews from the Grounds Services Department. Jill Hartman, administrative assistant to Director Kirk Pelland, estimated that as many as 60 of the department's 70 employees made it in to work the morning of Dec. 6, the day after the storm.

"Their very first task was clearing trees so people could drive up and down the streets and parking lots," Hartman said. "There were no specific crews doing any specific things. They all just worked as one huge team. Everybody just came together."

Pelland said it is a part of the job members of his crew not only accept but embrace. "We are designated as critical employees, and our guys take that charge very seriously," Pelland said. "Part of our mission is to keep the campus beautiful, but another important part is to keep it open."

And if campus was to be ready to open by Friday, they had to be there Thursday to clear roads and walkways and remove broken limbs that still hung from trees.

Most of the men worked until 1 a.m. Thursday. Four members of the crew didn't think they could make it back into work the next morning, so they volunteered to stay at work and sleep on cots. They didn't get much sleep. At 4 a.m., they got a call about felled trees blocking parts of Columbia, Raleigh and Pittsboro streets.

"We really do kick into another level of teamwork and awareness and communication at times like this," Pelland said. "I'm proud to be a part of an organization that can respond so quickly and effectively. And it's not without personal sacrifice."

At the Dec. 6 Faculty Council meeting, Chancellor James Moeser talked not only about the damage the storm had done to campus but about the way many employees responded to it.

Moeser thanked the grounds crews, along with the electrical distribution crews and the public safety officers, for the time and work they put in to make life easier for everybody else on campus.

Moeser said chainsaws will be used to clear debris and remove damaged limbs but their use during final exams was to be limited to avoid disturbing students.

Pelland said the only silver lining to the storm was that Dec. 5 was scheduled as a reading day. "The fact that the Registrar's Office scheduled it as a reading day was fabulous, and the Grounds Services Department is extremely grateful," Pelland said.

Ray DuBose, director of Energy Services, said the University's Cogeneration Facility stayed in operation throughout the ice storm and was able to provide heat and electricity to most of the main campus. About 15 percent of the campus experienced no interruption of power. Another 15 percent experienced an outage of only a few hours. The rest of campus experienced an outage of six hours, DuBose said.

The one exception was Odum Village, which had power restored by 6:30 p.m. on Thursday, thanks to the University's electrical systems crews, DuBose said.

After Duke Power lost service on the morning of Dec. 5, all of the power supplied to Carolina came from the University's Cogeneration Facility, DuBose said. Under normal circumstances, the facility supplies about a third.

Crashing at Carroll Hall
That power also supplied a safe and warm place for people to stay hours before the Woollen Gym shelter opened.

On the night of Dec. 4, as the snow and rain turned streets into a glaze of ice, Richard Cole, dean of the School of Journalism and Mass Communication, decided to keep Carroll Hall open for a place where faculty members and graduate students could crash. "There was really no decision to it," Cole said. "It was just the only thing to do. There were so many people who simply had no place to go and it was cold."

By the next morning, people were calling in to Carroll Hall to see if they could come in. Over the weekend, the third floor took on the function and atmosphere of a dormitory -- and one that allowed pets.

Jo Bass, an administrative assistant in the school, brought her dog, Dewey, who is three-legged, deaf and old, Cole said.

Pat Curtain, a professor of public relations, brought in her bird, as did Assistant Professor Linda Walsh.

On Dec. 11, a week after the storm hit, the school held its holiday party and three people came up to Cole to tell him how grateful they were for allowing them to stay at Carroll. "There were shelters, but they felt better here staying with people they knew," Cole said. "It was toasty."

Cole's house in Chapel Hill was without power, and he ended up sleeping at Carroll one night on the couch in his office, he said.

The shelter at Woollen Gym was set up and operated by the American Red Cross as a stopgap measure.

Before the storm, the Red Cross had contingency plans in place to use C.W. Stanford Middle School in Hillsborough and Chapel Hill High School as emergency shelters.

But when workers entered the high school at 11 a.m. on Dec. 6, they found that the school's generator was not working and a burst pipe had spilled three inches of water on the kitchen floor.

Reaching out
Diane Ellis, executive director of the Orange County Chapter of the American Red Cross, needed a quick replacement, and she found it in a phone call to Derek Poarch, the University's police chief. The Red Cross could set up a shelter in Woollen Gym, he said.

"Having this gym available was absolutely the best thing that could have happened at the worst time," Ellis said.

By noon, the shelter at Woollen opened. Later that night, 191 people had checked in, although Ellis is not sure how many of them stayed through the night.

Ellis acknowledged the people in Lenoir Hall who supplied meals ranging from chicken to pizza to salads. Hot food was also available in Chase and the Carolina Inn.

Ellis thanked the campus police officers like Moore who put in so many extra hours to provide around-the-clock security for people as they slept.

Families were able to have hot showers downstairs as well, along with fresh towels supplied by storeroom manager Wayne Johnson and storeroom clerk Don Huffman. Johnson said the athletics department made their washers and dryers available for families' laundry as well.

On the morning of Dec. 10, there were still several dozen people left in the Woollen Gym shelter. Pat Brooks, a retired high school English teacher married to Will Brooks, a professor of Russian History, arrived at the gym that morning to see if anybody needed their clothes and bedding needed to be taken to the laundromat.

She went to the Red Cross to serve as a volunteer after the Sept. 11 attacks a year ago. "That event gave me the spirit to help," Brooks said. The ice storm, gave that impulse real purpose, she said, and people within her reach who needed her help.

Click on the button below to see the animated album of the ice storm's aftermath on campus with photographs taken by Dan Sears, UNC News Services.

(If your computer does not have Quicktime installed, when you click on the link you most likely will receive an option to install it. If you do not see that option, you can download Quicktime from this link: www.apple.com/quicktime/download/