Top Stories of 2012 – No. 3: Gustnado destroys airport terminal

Published 9:43 pm Friday, December 28, 2012

A gustnado associated with a severe storm system that moved through eastern North Carolina was the force that destroyed the terminal building and damaged two hangars at Warren Field Airport on July, according to the National Weather Service.
Within three months after the gustnado did its destructive work, Washington officials decided to replace the building. The city owns the airport.
The storm was a deadly one.
Beaufort County officials reported David Harris, 61, and his wife, Carol, 58, were killed when a tree fell on their golf cart near Blounts Creek. They were from Pitt County, but had a second home on Gilead Shores Road.
William Henry Adams, 77, a Pitt County resident, was killed when a shed fell on him as he was trying to store an ATV.
At least 50 homes were left with moderate to severe damage.
At one point during the storm, all Beaufort County fire departments, their assets and EMS units had responded, according to Beaufort County Emergency Services Supervisor John Pack.
Pack said eight mobile homes were destroyed, with 10 homes sustaining major damage and at least 40 other homes sustaining minor to moderate damage.
Of the approximately 40 people in Beaufort County injured or whose existing illnesses escalated as a result of the storm, only two were hospitalized, Pack said. The rest were treated and released, he said.
“The hospitals did a great job,” Pack said.
In October, the city opted to rebuild the terminal, with the project cost estimated at a little more than $1 million.
The projected cost of the project includes $700,000 in construction costs, $150,000 for building design, $100,000 in building administration/inspection costs, $27,000 for a temporary terminal building (modular) and $97,700 in contingency funds, according to a document related to the project.
In addition to the $500,000 in state aid to airports from DOT’s aviation division, other funding sources for the project include two $150,000 grants and $274,700 from a partial insurance payout. The two Vision 100 grants, one for fiscal year 2012 and the other for fiscal year 2013, are grants the city receives on an annual basis to use for airport improvements.

 

About Mike Voss

Mike Voss is the contributing editor at the Washington Daily News. He has a daughter and four grandchildren. Except for nearly six years he worked at the Free Lance-Star in Fredericksburg, Va., in the early to mid-1990s, he has been at the Daily News since April 1986.
Journalism awards:
• Pulitzer Prize for Meritorious Public Service, 1990.
• Society of Professional Journalists: Sigma Delta Chi Award, Bronze Medallion.
• Associated Press Managing Editors’ Public Service Award.
• Investigative Reporters & Editors’ Award.
• North Carolina Press Association, First Place, Public Service Award, 1989.
• North Carolina Press Association, Second Place, Investigative Reporting, 1990.
All those were for the articles he and Betty Gray wrote about the city’s contaminated water system in 1989-1990.
• North Carolina Press Association, First Place, Investigative Reporting, 1991.
• North Carolina Press Association, Third Place, General News Reporting, 2005.
• North Carolina Press Association, Second Place, Lighter Columns, 2006.
Recently learned he will receive another award.
• North Carolina Press Association, First Place, Lighter Columns, 2010.
4. Lectured at or served on seminar panels at journalism schools at UNC-Chapel Hill, University of Maryland, Columbia University, Mary Washington University and Francis Marion University.

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