Mount Olive prepares while watching storm's path
By Steve Herring
Published in News on October 5, 2016 12:14 PM
MOUNT OLIVE -- Hurricane Matthew was still raging south of Haiti and Jamaica Monday night as the Mount Olive Town Board urged citizens to be prepared for the storm.
North Carolina's coast could begin to experience wet and windy conditions from the storm late Friday into early Saturday morning.
However, as of Monday there remained much uncertainty as to the storm's track. The powerful Category 4 storm with sustained winds of 140 miles per hour was expected to weaken to a Category 2 storm with winds of 105 miles per hour by the weekend.
Mayor Ray McDonald Sr. said he, Town Manager Charles Brown and Public Works Director Jammie Royall met Monday morning to talk about the storm.
"Jammie is in the process of getting all of the drains cleaned off," McDonald said. "One thing, even if we don't get a hurricane, we are going to get a lot of rain. So it is not something that you can put aside. We have already started on it.
"The other thing is I am looking into the possibility as to where we can have a shelter for people who live alone and that get kind of shook up over these kinds of things."
McDonald said he was trying to see if might be possible to use the National Guard Armory as a shelter.
"I don't have it nailed down yet," he said. "But I am working on it. There are several things that we have got to get done prior to it, but the biggest thing we have got to get done is to be sure that we can get this flooding under control that we normally have with high rains."
Crews have been working on the drains since Sunday, McDonald said.
In other business Monday, the board voted unanimously to apply for a $40,000 planning grant.
The grant is through the state Department of Transportation for bicycle and pedestrian planning.
It requires a 10 percent ($4,000) local matching grant.
The grant is for planning only, and the board would decide whether or not to pursue any recommendations that would be made, McDonald said.