NPR

Flood Waters From Florence Hit Elderly Hard

Jerry Gray with his dog, Zoe, who he also calls "Sweetie" and "Hard Head." Zoe was the only pet his deceased wife, Hilda, would allow in their house. After losing his wife and now his house, Gray says Zoe means everything to him. "If I lost her, forget it," he says.

In the days after a flood recedes, there's a scene that plays out repeatedly. House after house looks like it's gotten violently ill and vomited all of its waterlogged possessions out on to the lawn.

"It's just heartbreaking," says Jerry Gray, 75, while sitting in his front yard in Kinston, North Carolina. What used to be his worldly goods are strewn on the lawn around him-- wet mattresses, broken furniture, soggy clothes.

"I've been

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