Coping and recovering from a crisis is nothing new for North Carolina’s coastal residents. Hurricanes have altered life for generations of families along the Atlantic seaboard who regularly weather floods, evacuations and damage to homes and communities.
These circumstances are familiar to Karen Willis Amspacher, executive director of the Core Sound Waterfowl Museum & Heritage Center. The museum closed in September 2018 after suffering immense damage from Hurricane Florence and was only set to reopen April 1, 2020. The museum staff spent 20 months digging out artifacts, raising money and waiting for construction to finish. Then the pandemic happened.
Amspacher shares with host Frank Stasio how decades of hurricanes have shaped the resilient nature of coastal communities. She talks about the experience of dealing with two disasters at once and the lessons she hopes people will take from this time.
