News

City praises two-man crew for Hurricane Florence work

Josh Hoard and Alan Cliff spent six days helping New Bern recover from Hurricane Florence..

By Bill Moss, Published: October 23, 2018

In the wake of Hurricane Florence, the city of New Bern found that it suffered more than $100 million in damage with close to 5,000 homes and businesses being affected.

As a result, the city sent out a call for help to any municipality willing to send equipment and personnel to aid in the clean-up. 

At this time, the Public Works Department met to determine what, if anything, they could do to assist. It was determined the best equipment they could send would be one of the brush trucks with the knuckle boom loader because of its versatility. The next step was to find a couple guys willing to leave their normal lives and family for a week to go and help. This is when Josh Hoard and Alan Cliff stepped up and volunteered.



They left out on Oct. 6 to make the 400 mile trip to New Bern. What would take less than six hours in a car took closer to eight hours in the brush truck. Once they got there, they found devastation at every turn and put in six straight 12-hour days removing debris without any breaks. Because of the versatility of the knuckle boom, they found themselves setting up and loading countless dump trucks from New Bern and Charlotte as well as their own truck. To put the amount of damage into perspective, they worked for two straight days before they finished one street, finding house after house having been gutted and brought out to the curb.



Unfortunately, Josh and Alan’s efforts only made a dent in the amount of work needing to be done but it was work that was greatly appreciated by the City of New Bern and its residents. These two individuals are responsible for removing an estimated 750 to 800 tons of debris in one week.

The city thanks Josh and Alan for representing the city so well.