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

• Date: 01 March 2022
• Author: Martin, Edward
• Published date: 01 March 2022
• Author: Martin, Edward

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...