Local governments ask for state, federal help to address Helene aftermath

Local governments throughout Western North Carolina are facing a number of critical needs in the wake of Tropical Storm Helene, including temporary housing, infrastructure repair and debris removal.

Additionally, towns and cities are dealing with damaged farmlands, reduced tax revenue and cash flow issues.

That was the message officials sent at an Oct. 23 meeting of the Land of Sky Regional Council Board of Delegates. The council includes representatives from governments in Buncombe, Henderson, Madison and Transylvania counties.

The meeting also was attended by U.S. Rep. Chuck Edwards as well as representatives from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and several state agencies.

“We haven’t had time to look around and be sad,” said Forrest Gilliam, town administrator for Marshall, one of the hardest-hit communities in the region. “We have to focus on what’s right in front of us and what needs to be done, and that’s what I’m going to be doing.”

But Gilliam and others say they cannot address the problems on their own, given already thin resources.

“These are the things that we really need help with, beyond just our city or our county,” said Brevard Mayor Maureen Copelof. “We really need both state and federal help to come in and bring these resources so that we can move forward.”

‘Nowhere to go’

With thousands of WNC residents displaced by Helene, the need to find temporary housing has put a strain on communities already dealing with severe housing shortages.

“We have families with absolutely nowhere to go,” Copelof said. “They are on people’s couches, they are staying at the Brevard Music Center in unheated rooms and cabins. We have no temporary housing available within the county, and none of our hotels take the [FEMA transitional housing] vouchers.”

City officials have contacted housing rental companies and put out a call for RVs, but they can’t solve the problem themselves, she said.

“We really do need some of the disaster preparedness agencies to step up and get some temporary housing to the folks that need it now, not in three months,” Copelof said.

Gilliam said Marshall has about 30 single-family housing units that are not inhabitable, including eight that were destroyed. The remainder may be offline for six months to a year.

“We need help with that because we cannot coordinate a housing program,” he said.

Buncombe County Board of Commissioners Chair Brownie Newman said the county’s disaster shelters are housing more than 270 people. But those shelters, which include the A-B Tech Conference Center and WNC Agriculture Center, soon will need to be transitioned back to their original purposes.

“There’s also a huge need for emergency home repair as so many homes have suffered various degrees of damage,” he said. “If we can assist families with some of those critical needs, then it can help more people get back into their homes or stay in their homes and reduce the need for shelter space.”

The state owns property in the Swannanoa area that could potentially be used for temporary housing, Newman said.

Rebecca McCall, chairman of the Henderson County Board of Commissioners, said the county is struggling to find housing for volunteers. “I’ve been told that there’s volunteers that want to come from other states, but we don’t have any place to put them,” she said.

Infrastructure funding critical

Infrastructure repair, particularly for roads and bridges damaged by the storm, is another top priority, officials agreed.

“Getting that infrastructure funding for our region is going to be so absolutely critical,” Copelof said. “And, as others have said, we need to build back better. We need to fix some of these problems. We need to figure out how we control these floodwaters that are repeatedly hitting us.”

Montreat, which suffered significant damage to all its roads and bridges, will need help financing repairs, said Mayor Pro Tem Blake Mason. “It’s not just paying for the infrastructure, it’s administering it,” he said. “We’ve got a town staff of 13 people. It’s going to take massive amounts of time to administer all the road construction, all the bridge construction. Thirteen people just can’t do it.”

Elisabeth Ervin, vice mayor of Woodfin, said officials have a lot of questions about how to get funding for infrastructure repairs, including work needed at the town’s two riverfront parks.

Marshall’s Gilliam also emphasized the need for financial help. Money from the state’s Helene relief bill and guidance from the N.C. Department of Environmental Quality has helped the town survive the cash flow hit of having a damaged wastewater treatment plant. Additionally, the town has been able to tap into its fund balance, Gilliam said. “But you can’t have a fund balance big enough in this situation,” he added.

McCall said Henderson County needs help paying for repairs to more than 200 private roads.

The Park at Flat Rock sustained serious damage, said Flat Rock Commissioner Barbara Jeter. “One of the issues in our park is that we had a beekeeper that had established 12 hives of bees, 11 of which were destroyed. So now we have a lot of very unhappy bees swarming around in our park because we’re trying to do our cleanup.”

Fletcher Mayor Preston Blakely said some of the town’s manufacturing plants were damaged. “They need support at various levels to move forward with resiliency and success,” he said.

Blakely added that the town is implementing a moratorium on most new development in the floodplain. “Additionally, we would like to look into whether certain types of developments should be prohibited outright in designated floodplain areas,” he said.

Cleaning up

Biltmore Forest estimates it will have to remove about 340,000 cubic yards of vegetative debris as a result of Helene, Town Manager Jonathan Kanipe said. “That equals about 3 1/2 football fields standing 60 feet high,” he added. “From our standpoint, that’s our biggest issue in terms of cleanup right now. There were probably tens of thousands of trees that came down in town.”

Laurel Park Commissioner Deb Bridges said Henderson County has helped remove debris, but the community faces some unusual challenges.

“Our town is built on a mountain, and a significant number of homes are built on very steep slopes and have limited access to curbside space for the debris,” she said. “Even if they can get their debris down to the street, they have very little space to put it. So we’re working on ways that we can assist our residents to be able to get that debris to the street.”

Additionally, officials are concerned the amount of debris has increased the risk of wildfires in the heavily forested town. “Everywhere you look, we’ve got trees down, we’ve got piles of brush,” Bridges said.

Meanwhile, as Marshall digs out from the flooding that decimated the town, Gilliam emphasized the need for people on the ground to help with administrative tasks.

“We are a small community government, and we have to have help in navigating this process. You’ve got to work with us. This can’t just be funding announcements because those do us no good if we don’t have the time to read them and don’t have the time to figure out how we go about it.”