RALEIGH, N.C. — Hurricane Florence, one of the costliest storms ever to hit the U.S., damaged or destroyed tens of thousands of homes when it made landfall in September. Not all of them belonged to humans.

Days of wind and torrential rain snapped or toppled trees throughout the Croatan National Forest and on Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune, both near the coast. Among the trees felled were long leaf pines that were home to some of the forests’ most celebrated residents: endangered red-cockaded woodpeckers.

The 160,000-acre forest is home to about 112 “clusters” of the little black-and-white birds. A cluster usually consists of a mating pair and up to four of the previous year’s offspring. .

It takes a lot of trees to support a population of red-cockaded woodpeckers; while they live in social groups, each bird likes to retire at night to its own cavity in its own tree. The birds prefer to build their cavities in long leaf pines and, unlike other woodpeckers, they only build in live trees.

Long leaf pines, once plentiful across the Southeast but now relatively unusual due to overharvesting and decades of fire suppression, have to be mature before a red-cockaded will use them to set up house, and the birdhouse construction process usually takes two to five years.

Hugo Cobos, wildlife biologist for the Croatan and Uwharrie national forests, said Florence took out an average of one tree per active woodpecker cluster in the Croatan. So after the storm passed, he organized a rebuilding effort.

“Losing one of these trees is somewhat of a big deal,” Cobos said.

As soon as they were able to survey the damage, Cobos and his colleagues knew what to do to help the birds get a fresh start. One technique involves using gas-powered drills to excavate cavities in standing long leaf pines similar to those the birds build for themselves.

The other involves carving out a cavity inside a block of wood that’s about 10 inches high, 4 inches wide and 6 inches deep, then cutting into a long leaf pine with a chain saw, inserting the block, shimming it up and camouflaging it with spray paint to look like natural habitat.