On Friday afternoon, she drove back toward Burgaw, a town of 4,000 about 30 miles from the coast, to check for any new damage to her home. All around her, houses were still boarded up or covered with sagging scabs of blue emergency tarp. Some still had no windows and bore yellow stickers that warned “RESTRICTED USE.”

“It feels that much emptier today than it did before,” she said.

She was relieved that Dorian had not left any fresh wounds. Ms. Ballard still has to tear up the ruined subfloor on her house and then get expert advice on how she should rebuild. Moving in is months away, but she has not contemplated surrendering.

“Where am I going to go?” she asked.

Rick and Stephanie Garrett have no desire to leave. The river behind their home in the woods was still rising on Friday even as the sun swept scraps of rain and clouds away, and forecasters predicted the river would keep going up through Sunday.

They have raised their home twice, and it now sits like a treehouse among the cypresses and oaks. It still took on a foot of water last year during Hurricane Florence, and the Garretts had to cut out drywall and rip out carpets.

The Garretts, both scientists, said that they did not doubt the threat of climate change, but that nearly any home anywhere carried some risks. Their house was untouched by Dorian, but as they inspected their dirt road for fallen trees on Friday, they pondered how high and how dry they really were, even 16 feet up.