Students work at historic site
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When the hurricane-damaged Chicamacomico Historic Site learned of the Historic Preservations Trade School at the Edgecombe Community College, they were quick to make contact. Chicamacomico Life-Saving Station Historic Site and Museum learned that the school was approved by the State Historic Preservation Office and that all student work was supervised directly by teachers. This was exactly the kind of help Chicamacomico needed because the students were qualified and provided skilled labor while Chicamacomico was providing the materials.
The Edgecombe Community College is not that far from Chicamacomico’s home on northern Hatteras Island. The community college is located in the city of Tarboro, a little east of Rocky Mount and somewhat north of Greenville. Tarboro itself experienced devasting record floods from Hurricane Floyd in 1999.
The director of the preservation program put out a ”call for volunteers – urgent project.” Three insrtuctors, five students and even vacationing parents of a student- 10 in all – responded this time, and the preservation team was able to stay and work three days due to the accomodations generously provided by the Salvo Volunteer Fire Department and Camp Hatteras. Equally generous offers were made by Midgett Realty and Surf or Sound Realty, although not needed this time, perhaps the next.
In their brief but productive stay, the preservation team removed a half dozen windows, cut and secured plywood to cover the holes, reglazed and repaired some of those windows, and took additional windows back to the shop in Tarboro for a “complete makeover.”
When it came to picket fence gates, Jason Allen, Chip Ritch and Daniel Chasse reconstructed one entire small gate stand, repaired another small gate, and rebuilt four large double ones facing the parking lot.
Student Maggie Gregg and instructor Carl Kessler reinstalled pieces of a water tank roof. The pieces had been blown off by the hurricane, so first they had to be recovered and then laid out as a jigsaw puzzle to fit. Other team members worked to reinstall the steps of the Visitor Center, which fortunately had not floated far off.
Several of the team saw the need and begin replacing shingles on many of the buildings. Elsewhere, in a very tricky process, students Maggie Gregg and Alyssa, with
All of this, mind you, during the great irony of working in a nor’easter to repair what was damaged in a hurricane! They all worked in the relentless rain that fell all day Friday (November 4), and then in the winds of 30-40+ mph that blew all day Saturday, and dealtwith the flooding from ocean overwash that covered most of the site the whole time.
Not just anyone can work on buildings that are on the National Register of Historic Places, as Chicamacomico’s are. So there was initially a remarkable situation, and then a remarkable team with remarkable skills came in and made remarkable accomplishments.
And, remarkably, they will be back to do even more.
instructor Carl Kessler fixed two places in the visitors center where the tongue and groove flooring had buckled.