Across the Southeast

RALEIGH, N.C. - More than 50 homes were condemned on the Outer Banks and flood warnings remained in effect for parts of North Carolina's eastern and Sandhills counties Friday, two days after a storm dumped 2 to 5 inches of rain over much of the state.

Nags Head officials had condemned 54 properties as of Friday afternoon, according to the town's Web site. Damages included caved-in walls and uncovered septic tanks, The News & Observer of Raleigh reported.

No other details were available; calls to county and town offices were not returned Friday.

Further inland Friday, emergency workers kept a wary eye on rivers still rising.

The Lumber River near Lumberton was at about 17 feet Friday afternoon - 3 feet over flood stage. The river was expected to fall slowly and not drop below flood stage until late next week, said Michael Ross, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Wilmington.

The weather service predicted a 17-foot river at Lumberton would force evacuations of about 40 homes in the Pines Area, but that hadn't happened as of Friday afternoon.

HUNTSVILLE, ALA. - Nicole Ford was remembered Friday by friends and family members as a fighter.

Her struggles were recalled at a funeral Friday. She was one of four Lee High School students killed in a devastating school bus crash Monday.

Ms. Ford, 19, fought the odds, refusing to drop out of school when she became a teenage mother at 15 to her now 4-year-old son, DeMarcus.

And when she was shot in the face in the summer of 2002 and the bullet damaged her sight, speech and ability to walk, she fought death, overcoming the odds to return to school and renew her dream of graduating and working in health care.

More than 1,000 people packed the True Light Church of God in Christ for the service, sitting and standing in the aisles of the sanctuary and spilling outside into the balcony, hallways and basement.

Pastor H. Wendell Thompson recalled visiting Ms. Ford in a rehabilitation center after the shooting. He said they talked about how she would one day be able to walk back into the Owens Chapel M.B. Church where her family worshipped.

"Nicole had been declared, basically clinically dead," the Rev. Thompson said in his eulogy. "And the day came in 2003 when she walked into the church. The main thing is Nicole met Jesus and God gave her four years with DeMarcus and her family."

Bus driver Anthony Scott remained in critical condition at Huntsville Hospital on Friday, where three students were still hospitalized.

FAYETTEVILLE, N.C. - A flashy lily that grows in only 16 counties in the Sandhills of North and South Carolina now has a preserve all its own - 124 acres of longleaf pine forest in Moore County once targeted for development but recently bought by the state.

The Sandhills lily is a flamed-colored flower with spotted petals that curl back and up like eyelashes. It was identified as its own species only six years ago, and scientists believe that a mere few hundred exist.

The N.C. Plant Conservation Program bought the acreage in the rural Eastwood area for $1 million in September.

- Edited from wire reports