Teaching Resilience in Hurricane-Battered Southeastern North Carolina

Published on
Written by Holly Ajala
Andrea Jacobs-Rofail, center, and her sons Noah Rofail, 4, right, and Jonah Rofail, 1, left, play in her parents’ yard in Bolton, North Carolina on September 17, 2021. Jacobs-Rofail and her family were displaced for nine months when Hurricane Florence flooded their home in South Carolina and made it unlivable. However, Jacobs-Rofail attended a resiliency class to teach her techniques to cope with that trauma and to continue to be an involved parent during difficult times. She says the sessions made a strong impact on her life as she learned how to ask for help when her family desperately needed it.

When floodwaters from Hurricane Florence rose chest-deep outside her home, Andrea Jacobs-Rofail stuck a house key in her mouth and a trash bag in her bra and pleaded with a National Guardsman. She wanted to save her wedding dress. “He said, ‘You have five minutes,’” Jacobs-Rofail said of that September day three years ago.

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