It is believed the last time an incumbent U.S. senator visited Fair Bluff was in the late 1970s when Robert Morgan addressed a chamber of commerce dinner. On Monday, not one but two senators, as well as a member of the president’s cabinet and a congressman, ended that drought.
 
Sen. Thom Tillis (R-North Carolina) and Sen. Richard Burr (R-North Carolina) were joined by Secretary of Labor Alexander Acosta and Rep. David Rouzer (R-North Carolina) for a meeting at Town Hall with local officials and for a walking tour of a downtown business district decimated after flooding that followed Hurricane Florence.
 
Earlier in the day, the senators, labor secretary and congressman visited downtown Whiteville.
 
No one in town could remember two U.S. senators ever having before been in Fair Bluff at the same time.
 
Mayor Billy Hammond and Commissioners Lester Drew and Randy Britt looked on as Fair Bluff town consultant Al Leonard briefed Tillis, Burr, Acosta and Rouzer on recovery efforts in Fair Bluff and talked about the obstacles the town faces in moving forward.
 
Britt then led the visitors on a tour of the one-block business district where only the U.S. post office has reopened following Hurricane Florence. Yokos Japanese Restaurant was the only other Main Street downtown business to reopen after Hurricane Matthew two years ago and it is yet to resume operations after Florence.
 
The senators, who began their day inspecting flood damage in Wilmington with U.S. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Ben Carson before coming to Columbus County, left Fair Bluff and headed for Lumberton to inspect flood damage.

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