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PAMLICO BEACH (MCT) -- J.R. Taylor makes his living pulling crab pots and scraping oysters from the muddy bottom of the Pamlico River.

It is fickle work. At day's end, a good bounty might earn him a few $20 bills at a local fish shop.

These are not good days. Hurricane Irene swept away half of Taylor's 300 crab pots late last month, robbing him of equipment worth $5,000. He had to move in with a neighbor after the storm flooded him out of his aunt's cinderblock cottage.

"Something like this comes through and just wipes you out," said Taylor, 46. "Makes you wish you'd done life different."

In a day, Irene brought floods that took away lawnmowers and gas tanks, soaked mattresses and televisions, and destroyed hundreds of houses. Hurricane winds snapped pines that crushed cars and mobile homes.

In the months and years to come, Hurricane Irene may wash away a way of life.

Much of the damage is spread across the Inner Banks of North Carolina, in communities along the rivers that empty into the Pamlico and Albemarle sounds.

Irene's name now tops a decades-long list of brutal storms that have upended lives in the low-lying towns along these inland shores. The surge pushed waves of water four and five feet high across the land, ripping communities apart and flooding homes that had never been soaked before.

Many of the hardest hit live along the Pamlico and Pungo rivers in Beaufort County, where 283 families were left homeless, and neighboring Pamlico County, with 360 families homeless. In the three weeks since Irene struck the North Carolina coast Aug. 27, more than 15,000 people in the 10 worst-damaged counties have sought help from the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

Fishermen and factory workers are rooted to these rivers and bays, living simply in trailers and cottages in remote and largely untouched terrain. The median yearly household income in Beaufort and Pamlico counties is about $39,000, less than half that in Wake County and about 10 percent less than the state's average.

Unlike their coastal neighbors on parts of the Outer Banks, the Inner Banks communities are not crowded with million-dollar summer homes. When visitors come for the summer or for a weekend of fishing, they mostly share river shacks that have been passed along for generations.

People of the Inner Banks are stubborn, taking great pride in doing battle with forces larger than themselves. But Irene's wreckage is a battle on a greater scale, tangled in economic forces that most residents cannot control.

Since Hurricane Irene, many along Pamlico Sound are doubting their lives there. The young flirt with starting fresh somewhere new. The old question the wisdom of staying in a house so vulnerable to nature's fury.

Some had protected their homes with expensive flood insurance; many had not. If they choose to rebuild, they'll have to swallow the extra cost of lifting their houses high on wood or concrete pilings to comply with stricter building codes that have taken effect since they built their homes on the ground.

Some talk of abandoning their wrecked property, leaving the land to be purchased by someone with the means to erect a home far more elaborate.

"We'll see a lot of for-sale signs down here," said David Moye, a district manager for the state Division of Coastal Management, who is based in Beaufort County. "You are losing that group of people who could afford to be here because it didn't cost them a whole lot."

Even those with insurance to repair their houses don't have coverage that will help them pay for temporary shelter until they can return home. Some, particularly the old, may have finally lost the stomach for a life so fragile.

Brenda Lewis, 71, fought back tears as she stared at a pile of ruined furniture and mattresses at the edge of her home in the Pamlico County fishing village of Lowland. Inside, her husband and sons pulled the Sheetrock out so they could let the damp wood dry.

Lewis and her husband have lived in Lowland since the 1960s, but now she wonders whether this is a place for them to spend their final years. They had canceled their flood insurance after they paid off their home years ago.

"Our life is here, but we don't know whether to give up and move on," Lewis said. "I almost wish another storm would knock it down and make the decision for us."

As far south as Mesic in Pamlico County and as far north as Stumpy Point in Dare County, residents have piled nearly all they own in heaps near the road. The surge brought as much as five feet of water into some homes, soaking furniture and ruining appliances.

Mold has set in. Mosquitoes are breeding in ditches and puddled yards.

Few know where to turn, and help trickles in slowly. There are few apartment complexes, and motels are jammed with Red Cross volunteers and FEMA aid workers. The federal government declared the area a disaster zone, which may mean temporary trailers could become available. But it's a complicated issue, because FEMA trailers can't be installed in flood plains.

This part of the coast is remote, bringing 20-mile-long stretches of highway without as much commercial activity as a market. Unemployment is high, with rates in Beaufort County topping state averages last year at 13 percent. Many residents are on fixed incomes.

For the time being, the lucky ones are bunking with family and friends. The rest are sleeping in molding homes or battling mosquitoes in tents outside.

"This will completely undo people's ability to be here," said Miriam Prescott, a Pamlico County resident who is managing volunteer efforts at Bayboro Baptist Church.
Irene devastated Lowland and Hobucken, fishing villages on Goose Island. The island, connected by bridge to the Pamlico County mainland, is home to about 100 families. Fewer than a dozen homes stayed dry; the rest were destroyed or significantly damaged by the flooding.

The timing of the hurricane could not have been worse. These are poor communities in good years, and recently the area has suffered more economic hardship. The highest paid among them are tugboat engineers, some of whom have been laid off in recent years.

On Goose Island, most others fish, abiding by state regulations they say have hampered their ability to earn a living wage. The storm battered their boats and swept away their crab pots, cages submerged to catch the creatures as they float through the sound.

Crabbers say the storm chased away many crabs, and now fishermen fear the surge also contaminated the oysters at the bottom of the rivers. The oyster season typically starts in late September, just as crabbing ends.

Ross Sturbaugh Jr., a commercial fisherman who retired from the Navy and moved to Lowland, sat in his carport and drained a can of beer on a recent afternoon. He fretted about the boat he can't pull from the river because his truck was flooded in the storm and his trailer was washed away.

Mosquitoes covered Sturbaugh's sweaty brow, and his mood changed like the wind.

One minute he was adamant, swearing this home is his Alamo and that he'll never abandon it. The next, he cursed Irene and talked of the heartbreak of watching a neighbor's belongings float away. He wondered if he could bear watching that again.

"This is a hearty crowd, but I don't know if we'll all pull out of it," said Sturbaugh, 58.

Sturbaugh lives hand to mouth. He pulls enough out of the sea to fill his belly, but not to pad his bank account. He never made enough money to afford flood insurance premiums.

A FEMA official came by soon after the storm and told him about some loans he could take from the federal government if he wanted to rebuild. Sturbaugh said it's hard to imagine taking help from Uncle Sam.

Instead, he calculated whether he could sit out oyster season and rip out the walls and floors himself. He would sleep in a tent in his yard, just as he has since the dampness in his home invited mold.

"I've never asked nobody for help my whole life," Sturbaugh said. "I don't think I'll start now."

Kary Pettiford spent his boyhood in the 1970s riding his bike down the streets of Aurora to their dead ends as boat ramps into the Pamlico River. Sometimes, the boys in the neighborhood brought their poles and tried to catch a fish. Most days, they just yanked off their shirts and shorts and took a swim.

Nobody had much money, but no one starved, he said. PCS, the phosphate mining plant, anchored many to Aurora with a steady paycheck -- and it still does. Someone always had a bucket of fish they'd share with a neighbor who had fallen on hard times.

"This was as good a place as you could grow up," said Pettiford, 43.

Like many young people, Pettiford drifted away after high school. But recently, he'd been longing for the quiet and a place where everyone knew his name. Pettiford came home to Aurora this spring.

He said the town he found seemed far more desperate than he recalled. So many of his friends were out of work and couldn't scratch up any prospects.

Pettiford, too, has had problems finding work.

Then the storm came Aug. 27 and flooded the trailer he and his mother rented in town. All he owned is soaked and unsalvageable. He is sleeping on friends' couches and trying to figure out whether it is worth it to stay.

"People come and get stuck here," Pettiford said. "I don't think I want to be one."

Taylor, the fisherman from Pamlico Beach on the northern shore of Beaufort County, spent his youth out West. He mined gemstones in desert areas.

But the waters of his youth, years ago, pulled him back to the Inner Banks. He offered to take care of his aunt's cottage on Boss Hogg Road in Pamlico Beach in exchange for a place to live. He arrived with the clothes on his back and little else; he figured he could find work on the river at his doorstep.

Like many fishermen, Taylor uses a license purchased by a fishing house. For their upfront cost, he promises to pay a small fee and sell them all he catches.

He also leaned on the fishing business to help with his equipment. He borrowed thousands to buy more crab pots this year. This summer, the engine blew on his boat, and he took out another loan to replace it.

The storm swept away half of Taylor's crab pots and shook his nerves. He has not had much stomach for getting out on the water again.

Taylor talked to a FEMA representative earlier this month. He can't get help for his aunt's house because it's not his and because she does not need it as her primary residence.

Taylor can apply for some help, though, to restore his fishing business. He needs about $5,000 to make good on his loans to the fish market owner. He'll need more to restore the lost crab pots to be ready for next season.

"All of us are in a mess," Taylor said. "I got so many worries, I can't get through them all."

Then, Taylor stares at the Pamlico River and gets quiet. The water is calm again, and so is he.