Dave DeWitt

Concerts, memorials, and other events will take place across the state this Sunday to remember those who died on 9-11. Dave DeWitt reports.

From an interfaith panel at Duke to firefighter climbs in Greensboro and Morrisville, there will be a full slate of events surrounding the 10th anniversary of 9-11.

In the months following September 11th, thousands of firefighters, police, and other volunteers descended into ground zero. It was one of the most difficult and dangerous search efforts ever undertaken.

The Reverend Louane Frey lives in Cary now, but on September 11th she was a school teacher in New Jersey. She also was a hospital chaplain and counseled victims after traumatic events. So when the call came for people of faith to provide comfort and counsel to those working at ground zero, she quickly stepped forward.

Most school districts in North Carolina are county-wide. Mergers of county and city schools occurred mostly in the 1970s through the 1990s, driven by cost and desegregation orders.

But one county remained steadfast against consolidation. Halifax County in northeastern North Carolina has three separate school districts… Roanoke Rapids, Weldon City, and Halifax – for just 8,000 total students. By comparison, if Wake County was divided into a comparable number, there would be 53 different school districts.

College football fans will be flocking to Chapel Hill, Durham, and Raleigh this weekend. UNC-Chapel Hill, Duke, and N-C State will hold their season opening games.

It’s been a tumultuous off-season for major college football programs. And no program has been under more scrutiny than Carolina, for everything from parking tickets to academic integrity issues.

Tomorrow, the team finally takes the field. Everett Withers is the interim head coach.

The first of a series of public information sessions on the proposed Wake Schools student assignment plan will be held tonight. The sessions are designed to update people on the status of a new plan.

The presentations will be held at high schools throughout the county. Members of the student assignment task force will offer some details of the plan and discuss what it may mean for where kids will go to school next year.

People all across eastern North Carolina are cleaning up and drying out after Hurricane Irene. Damage ranged from a new inlet on Highway 12 on the Outer Banks to downed trees across the coastal plain. Among the hardest hit areas were Carteret, Craven, and Pamlico Counties, near New Bern and Morehead City. Irene made its initial landfall there as a furious category one hurricane and left a trail of destruction.

Highways leading out of coastal communities are jammed with people evacuating ahead of Hurricane Irene.

From Cape Fear to Elizabeth City, two-and-four lane roads are packed with vacationers, displaced residents, and motorists trailing boats. All are headed for higher ground.

Sergeant Jeff Gordon is with the State Highway Patrol.

Towns along the western edge of Pamlico Sound are preparing for storm surge when Hurricane Irene hits.

" Not surprisingly, storm surge is worst when the wind is blowing water right at you. That makes the exact track of Irene so important. If the center of the storm tracks directly over Pamlico Sound, towns like New Bern and Swansboro could be in for significant surge."

Rick Luettich is the director of the University of North Carolina Institute of Marine Science in Morehead City.

Traditional calendar schools across North Carolina start today. It’s an especially anxious day at Walnut Creek Elementary in Wake County. That school is opening its doors for the first time – the first new elementary school to open in ten years with a large majority of students who are both high-poverty and low-achieving.

This has not been a good few months for major college football. Schools like Ohio State, U-S-C, and Miami have run afoul of the NCAA. That’s also the case at UNC-Chapel Hill, where football coach Butch Davis was fired just before practice began, and school officials will face the NCAA infractions committee in October.

While this environment would seem to make college presidents run from big-time football, one UNC system school is running toward it.