Housing-elevation meeting
reveals post-Irene concerns
CHOCOWINITY — Darnell Smith wanted answers.
A resident of the South Creek community, Smith was one of at least 40 people attending a hazard-mitigation meeting Thursday night at the Chocowinity Fire Department.
Beaufort County’s emergency-management office requested the meeting to link people with state officials and information about assistance still rolling into the area in response to Hurricane Irene.
Smith and her husband, Brent, live about three-tenths of a mile from the water’s edge near Aurora.
They watched as Irene’s wind-driven tides washed over their property Aug. 27, 2011.
“This boat came right by my house,” Smith said, pointing to a picture she snapped of what appeared to be a fishing boat floating over what had been dry land.
Smith said she and her husband lost vehicles.
The couple’s home sustained damage from flooding before the waters receded, she said.
Their game room was awash in 42 inches of water, Smith said, after gesturing to photos of waves rolling through her yard.
But Smith worries her insurance company won’t match an estimate for repairs.
The couple lives in a temporary housing unit provided by the Federal Emergency Management Agency. They have to be out of that unit by April 1, long before the house can be fixed, Smith said.
“Where do I have to go?” she asked. “I just can’t imagine leaving what I’ve got.”
Smith, a retired hairdresser, and her husband, who retired from the N.C. Highway Patrol, have no intention of moving, the wife made clear, saying they built their home 30 years ago.
“I planned to be there 30 more, but Irene made a bigger decision for me,” she said.

Seeking answers

The session that attracted Smith and other people struck by Irene focused on the state-federal Hazard Mitigation Grant Program.
Under the program, homes located in a disaster area may be retrofitted to reduce the chances of damage from future disasters. The program also has an acquisition component under which the government buys out repeatedly flooded properties.
The program isn’t based on income, advised Nick Burk, a hazard-mitigation supervisor with the state’s Division of Emergency Management.
“It’s purely based on flood risk,” Burk said.
The federal government pays 75 percent of the cost of the program, with the state picking up 25 percent, he said.
A FEMA analysis projects how many disasters are expected to hit an applicant’s property over 30-plus years, he explained. If the risk outweighs the cost of a buyout, “you’re in the program,” Burk said.
Just 15 to 20 percent of the applications are approved, he added.
“It’s a pretty low number,” Burk acknowledged.
For applicants who are accepted, retrofitting is a long-term proposition. Retrofits, like raising a house on pilings, may occur one to three years after a storm, he said.
For the buyout portion of the program, officials run a FEMA cost-benefit analysis to decide what they’ll pay for a property, said Eddie Williams, a project manager with the state’s emergency-management division.
Up-to-date appraisals, supplied by homeowners, will be taken under consideration, Williams said.
“Our job is to make as many of you all pass as possible,” Burk told the audience at Thursday’s meeting.
The application deadline for this program — be it for buyout or elevation — is the end of this month, Williams said.
Again, Burk let his listeners know not every applicant makes the cut.
“We can only elevate houses that have structural integrity to them,” he said.
At that point, three people walked out of the meeting.

Aftermath

Following previous hurricanes, housing-elevation under the Hazard Mitigation Grant Program reduced storm-related property damage in Beaufort County, according to John Pack, the county’s emergency-management coordinator.
Belhaven saw a record flood during Irene, but endured less property damage than in previous storms because nearly 156 of the town’s homes had been elevated or bought out, Pack related.
But Irene was a 200- to 500-year flood event for some communities, he pointed out.
Among the inundated structures were those that already had been elevated under the program, he said. One surge-hammered home had been raised 9 feet, Pack shared.
Though it was a Category 1 storm, the lowest on the Saffir-Simpson hurricane scale, Irene’s size, angle of attack, duration and track over the Pamlico Sound made it especially treacherous.
The storm pushed an estimated surge of 9 feet or greater over some places off the Pamlico River.
Three-foot waves were reported riding atop the surge at Hickory Point south of the river, Pack said.
“Waves aren’t supposed to happen on the Pamlico River, but Hurricane Irene didn’t listen to that,” he said at Thursday’s gathering. “She showed us what a Category 1 can do.”
Irene lashed Beaufort County for hours with sustained hurricane-force winds and gusts of more than 100 mph, Pack has said.
This benchmark hurricane destroyed 126 homes in the county, and left 362 homes so badly battered their occupants needed to relocate to make way for repairs.
As of December, 195 homes sited here still were uninhabitable, county officials reported.
As of Friday, Pack said he and his staff had received around 118 applications to be forwarded to the state for the Hazard Mitigation Grant Program.
Asked whether she had heard the answers she sought Thursday, Smith replied, “Not really.”
But, whatever officialdom decides, she doesn’t plan to vacate her land.
“I can’t leave it,” she said. “It’s not going to happen.”