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During Hurricane Floyd, Richard Moore earned the nickname "the flood stud."

Then the secretary of crime control and public safety, Moore was frequently on television as the public face of the state's response to the devastating floods following the 1999 hurricane.

Dome first heard the nickname from a female source who immediately begged not to be named. The only print reference we could find to the nickname was in an Oct. 21, 2003, article in the Asheville Citizen-Times by Kerra Bolton, now an employee of the state Democratic Party.

Moore soaked up the media spotlight like biscuits on gravy when he served as secretary of the state's public safety department in 1999 during Hurricane Floyd. Reporters began calling him the "flood stud."

It's not a new nickname. Des Moines water manager L.D. McMullen, Chicago construction manager John Kenny and a fictional TV anchor in a Christopher S. Wren novel have all shared the moniker.

Dome asked Moore about the nickname a while back. In particular, we wanted to know what his wife thought about it.

"You'll have to ask her about that," he said. 

Progress Energy underwrote a documentary based on Richard Moore's book.

The electric utility was one of four sponsors of "Faces from the Flood," a 55-minute documentary about Hurricane Floyd that aired on UNC-TV in 2004. (It also bought copies of the book.)

The public television station hired independent producer Donna Campbell, who had already made two documentaries on the hurricane, to make a third in April of 2003, while the book was still being written.

Campbell worked with Treasurer Moore and co-author Jay Barnes, tracking down many of their key sources for second interviews on film. Moore is also featured for three minutes toward the end of the documentary.

UNC-TV spokesman Steve Volstad said that the sponsors were found by a separate department. Moore and Campbell both told Dome they were not aware who the sponsors were during filming.

Each of the sponsors — Progress, Lowe's Home Improvement, First Citizens Bank and the nonprofit Broyhill Foundation — contributed $15,000.

The show aired on May 20, 2004, and has been broadcast six times.

Progress Energy bought 1,520 copies of "Faces from the Flood."

The utility company paid $29,970 in 2003 to purchase Treasurer Richard Moore's book on Hurricane Floyd and give it to public libraries and schools in the affected areas.

The company got a 45 percent discount from the $29.95 list price and paid $3.50 each for postage and handling.

Each copy came with a bookplate that noted that it was "a gift from the employees of Progress Energy."

The purchase accounted for two-thirds of the clothbound sales of the book so far. As of July 31, 755 other copies were sold in that format, and 1,330 copies were sold in paperback.

Vice President Gene Upchurch said the company wanted to preserve the history of the flood and commemorate the rebuilding efforts.

"As a result of our donation, we received hundreds of thank-you notes from librarians around the state," he wrote Dome.