Residents fear they’ll be left in a “ghost town” as Aurora’s only bank shuts down

AURORA, BEAUFORT COUNTY, N.C. (WITN) - A Beaufort County town’s only bank has shut down, just a few months after Southern Bank announced the branch would stop operations.

Friday, the doors of the Aurora branch closed for good.

“It’s just going to be like a dead zone here,” Aurora Dollar General employee Cody Blalock says. “There’s nothing around for miles.”

Now, the distance to the next closest bank is creating trouble for many who live in town.

“We’ve got to drive 20 miles to the next county to go to the bank now, and grocery store, and basically anything else,” Aurora resident Tony Moore says.

Making the journey isn’t possible for everyone that calls Aurora home, according to Moore, who has an 86-year-old mother.

“It’s more of an inconvenience for the elderly people if anything else, and this town is mainly elderly, at least 80% elderly,” he says.

WITN obtained a letter sent to customers by Southern Bank about the branch’s closure.

It says this closure comes after locations were evaluated, and each branch’s ability to serve the community was assessed.

As the only bank in town, many Aurora businesses were loyal customers.

“It’s the only bank that’s around for miles, so it’s going to be harder to drop deposits and stuff like that,” Blalock told WITN.

Residents say the closure isn’t easy, especially on the bank employees.

“They’re struggling,” Moore says. “It’s a struggle, and then with the price of everything going up, it just makes life extremely hard to live.”

The bank’s closure accompanies talks of S.W. Snowden Elementary School possibly shutting down too.

Residents say they hope they’ll see change before they’re left in what they call, a ghost town.

According to Southern Bank, the Aurora branch will be merging with its branch in New Bern. In addition, Southern Bank locations available in the region include Ayden, Belhaven, and two in Greenville.

The closure in Aurora comes days after another branch closed in the Nash County town of Bailey, leaving both towns without a bank.