RESILIENCY REQUIRED: Hardship is no stranger to Rocky Mount as it responds to the devastating QVC fire.

• Author: Martin, Edward
• Position: NCTREND: Economic Development

Rocky Mount Mayor Sandy Roberson shivered, though heat from the smoldering ruins drifted across the parking lot. "It takes 3,000 degrees to melt steel," he says. But before him, massive beams twisted like a kid's candy swizzle stick. "I stood there, watching N.C. Forest Service helicopters dumping water on [the fire] and thinking about the impact it was going to have on our community."

A week before Christmas, Roberson had rushed to the distribution center of QVC, eight miles from downtown Rocky Mount. The fire had flashed through the television shopping channel's 1.2-million-square-foot fulfillment center, destroying 70% of it. Three hundred workers on site at the time escaped. Unfortunately, one staffer was later found dead. A $20,000 reward for information of the fire's cause has been posted.

The devastation chilled Roberson and the community. In a region beset by decades of economic setbacks, some quarters see lessons in disaster recovery in how local officials responded. Many were learned the hard way in 1999 when the Tar River flooded during Hurricane Floyd, destroying a chunk of the area's economic base.

The QVC fire left 2,500 or more full-time and contract employees out of jobs. But while smoke was still rising, Edgecombe County Manager Eric Evans was talking with officials of Turning Point Workforce Development Board, the local arm of the state's jobs commission. Within hours, the agency was setting up job fairs.

A few weeks later at the cavernous Rocky Mount Event Center, some 400 QVC employees queued up to meet with 40 employers including CSX, Cummins and Pfizer. Some had already signed up potential employees through virtual job fairs.

Others were hired on the spot, says Norris Tolson, president of Carolinas Gateway Partnership, the region's public-private economic recruiting organization. "Fortunately, we're in an aggressive growth mode in the region and have lots of jobs in the community," he says.

QVC, which reported $8 billion in revenue during the first nine months of 2021, kicked in $100,000 toward an employee aid fund organized by Gateway, the Rocky Mount Chamber of Commerce, United Way and local businesses.

The Rocky Mount-based Golden LEAF Foundation says it is primed to possibly pump millions into efforts to attract replacement industries or help QVC rebuild. The group administers a $1 billion fund collected from the settlement for tobacco's health impact.

Rocky Mount, whose population of about 50,000 is little changed...