SWAN QUARTER — Three flood-prone structures in Hyde County are expected to undergo an elevation process to avoid any further flood damage.

The structures are located at the 250 and 270 blocks of Lazy Lane in Engelhard and the 570 block of N.C. Highway 45 in Swan Quarter, according to a public notice.

Rosemary Johnson, the county’s planning and economic development director’s assistant, said the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) keeps track of areas that have been repeatedly inundated with floodwaters and provides funding to elevate them.

She said it is expected to put structures above the 100-year flood plain.

“They will elevate it, I think it’s at least 1 foot above the flood stage,” Johnson said.

Each of the structures will be elevated with block piers, and since the properties are located on the sound side, it will likely be “continuous block elevations,” the notice stated.

FEMA works with N.C. Emergency Management to ascertain which properties have experienced the most damage, said Sarah Johnson, public information officer for Hyde County.

“You pretty much just get information from homeowners based on a disaster that they have experienced,” she said.

Johnson said this process is nothing new for the county, and she doesn’t think it had any relation to the most recent flooding in early October.

“I think this stuff usually takes a while to process,” she said. “We’ve done other houses before. … We’re always working on, you know, disaster planning and we work a lot with housing elevations.”

“Sometimes we work with the Methodist Men’s Group, and they sometimes do smaller updates,” Johnson added.

She said Hyde County, particularly the mainland, is working on putting together a comprehensive plan for dealing with flood damage, thanks to support from N.C. Sea Grant.

According to Sea Grant’s website, the organization facilitates funding for millions of dollars of research, outreach and education programs each year, which include community development, law and policy and coastal hazards.

Johnson said the county is still in the process of gathering information and has a sister city in Georgia undergoing the same process.

“It’s a comprehensive community resilience plan. … They haven’t really come up with a name for it yet,” she said. “It’s going to be for mainland Hyde County because Ocracoke and mainland Hyde County are so different.”

For more information, contact Sarah Johnson at 252-542-0842 or sarah.johnson@hydecountync.gov.