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CAPE FEAR MEMORIAL BRIDGE CLOSURE: UPDATES, RESOURCES, AND CONTEXT

Pender County Residents Wait Nervously

Fire trucks to be used at Wednesday's woodland blaze.
Fire trucks to be used at Wednesday's woodland blaze.

By Catherine M. Welch

Wilmington, NC – Some of the evacuated residents waited at the end of Buck Shot Road to find out when they could get back to their homes.

Sonya Garvey

As planes roared overhead dumping water on this second fire, Double Oaks Drive resident Sonya Garvey waited nervously inside her car.

What she's worried about more than anything are her three horses named Maggie, AWOL and Sugar Britches. Garvey says a neighbor let the horses out before evacuating and went back into the neighborhood to find them waiting for Garvey in front of her house.

She says once the smoke clears her vet will come to check on the horses.

As soon as they get them transported, she's going to come out and check them out and make sure they're okay. Because we've known that they've been breathing this smoke just about all day.

Garvey says she's grateful for the work put in to save her and her neighbors' houses, along with her horses, from the fire.

Terry Waters

Terry Waters was having a day and her dad was no help.

Waters saw the smoke out of her back window and sped over to her father's house on Shady Pines Road.

It took her a while to talk her way past the blockade, and when she did, firefighters told her she had three minutes to get in, grab dad and get out.

She banged on her father's front door, no answer.

Called him on his cell phone, no answer.

She finally found him around back, painting the deck and refusing to budge.

So Waters grabbed a firefighter and begged him to make her father leave, that didn't work. Even threats of being arrested didn't phase Dad.

And then after all of that, he goes, I'll meet you at Subway and we'll get something to drink. And I'm like, okay. And when I get into the car, the fireman goes, good, let him meet you at Subway because we're not letting him get back to his house.

And sure enough, Waters and her dad ended up on the side of Highway 17 with a handful of other residents waiting to get back down Buck Shot Road to check out their homes and finish the paint job on the back deck.