The closing of International Paper Company’s mill in Franklin will have an impact throughout our area.

With 1,100 people directly employed by the mill, the immediate impact will be huge.

But the effect over time will be far greater.

A hastily compiled report predicts that 2,400 other jobs in the area will be lost as a result of the plant closure.

That’s in addition to the people left unemployed at the plant itself.

The impact will be felt in areas like automotive repair, maintenance, logging, maintenance and repair of buildings, medical services, real estate, restaurants, retail trade, trucking and on and on.

Industries critical to Hertford County will be impacted.

There is little we can do to react positively to the plant closing.

But the people of our area are strong and have a long history of successfully weathering adversity.

We will do that again.

We will support and care for each other.

We will find ways.

And one day, we will look back on this time as just another problem we, together, overcame.