Displaced residents still waiting to get home two months after Hurricane Florence

Nov. 17--Towne Place is the new address for Jacksonville residents Eric and Ruthann Copenhaver but it's not the house they call home.

For the past two months, they have been living in a local hotel while waiting to get back into their home in the Northwoods area after it sustained major water damage from Hurricane Florence.

A pile of construction debris still sits along the curb and a moving truck parked in the driveway holds all their belongings. Inside the walls and flooring have been pulled out in every room of the house, leaving what is now a skeleton of the home they left before Florence arrived.

Even after they returned home after evacuating to Georgia in advance of the storm they thought the brown spot on the ceiling in the master bedroom would be a relatively small leak to fix.

"That spot kept getting bigger and bigger, and then as time went on we got this," Mrs. Copenhaver said as she stood in the bare space that is their living room. "We thought we were just going to be replacing the ceiling in the bedroom."

"Well, we did have to replace the ceiling in the bedroom. And everything else, too," her husband added with a laugh.

What they didn't see was all the water that had come in through the roof and down behind the walls.

The couple tries to stay positive and laugh when they can as they wait to get back into their home.

And they are not alone.

Mrs. Copenhaver said they have met a number of other displaced families during their stay at TownePlace Suites. The situations vary but they all want the same thing.

"I think we all just want to get back to normal; we want to get back home," she said.

As recovery efforts continue across Eastern North Carolina, requests for assistance have continued to rise.

According to information provided by FEMA, Onslow County residents have received more than $62.4 million in state and federal funds.

Of that total, nearly $10.4 million in state and federal grants have gone to nearly 3,200 homeowners and renters.

There have been more than 930 flood insurance claims filed by Onslow property owners, with $19.7 million paid to date.

As of Nov. 13, more than $32.3 million in U.S. Small Business Administration low-interest disaster loans have been approved for 883 homeowners and 72 businesses, the FEMA statistics show.

A disaster recovery center remains open at the Piney Green Shopping Center from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Saturday for those seeking assistance. A DRC opened in Jacksonville on Sept. 23 and more than 3,380 people have visited the center since that time.

Homeowners and renters in Carteret County have received more than $6.8 million in state and federal grants; Craven County more than $15.3 million; Jones County more than $4.7 million; and Lenoir County more than $1 million.

When it comes to flood insurance claims, an estimated $45 million in claims have been paid to date in Carteret County; $150 million in Craven County; $10.2 million in Jones County; and $6.2 million in Lenoir County, according to the latest FEMA estimates.

Public facilities

For some, Florence not only displaced people from their homes -- it displaced them at work too.

North Topsail Beach's town hall suffered damages making it unsuitable for officials and police to continue working in it. In response, officials moved to a temporary location in Sneads Ferry and the police department rented a trailer.

Town Hall is currently operating from a temporary location in Sneads Ferry, at 2021 N.C. 172, next to Pizza Hut.

"We're in the parking lot," North Topsail Beach Police Chief William Younginer said. "They moved the town hall up to Sneads Ferry but that was too far for us."

The insurance covering NTB town hall, he said, is still assessing the building and has yet to test for mold and other hazards.

"I expect it will probably be a year before we get back," Younginer said.

And while operating the 13-person police force from a trailer is a little bit tight, Younginer said it's not all bad. The department was able to store some equipment in Sneads Ferry to save space, and its equipped with meter-based electricity.

The hardest part of working from the trailer, he said, was figuring out where to store equipment. At first, officers were having to make trips back and forth from the storage building or the temporary town hall. Out of the staff, Younginer said some officers were dealing with flooding and other damages at home, but it was tougher adjusting to the new workspace.

Still, he said he's just thankful to have a place to work from.

"It was good that they rented one of these trailers and they're let us do that," Younginer said.

Services and businesses further inland, too were affected by Florence. While some have yet to reopen, others like the Jacksonville N.C. Works Career Center are operating out of trailers and shared spaces until suitable office space is found. Gerry Cruz, veterans career adviser for N.C. Works, has been stationed at the Salvation Army building since September, and said he's unsure when he will return to a "regular" office space.

The Town of Swansboro still has work to repair some facilities, including the roof on town hall and the Visitor's Center building, but it is the downtown business district that is still working to recover after extensive flooding along Front Street from storm surge and rain.

While many were able to clean up and reopen as soon as power was restored, there are still some that are closed.

Icehouse Waterfront Restaurant is having to rebuild and Saltwater Grill is planning to reopen in December. Candy Edventure is holding limited opening days as they work toward getting back to full operations. They opened for Mullet Festival weekend and were to open again this weekend for Swansboro by Candlelight.

All Onslow County Schools are now back in operation after being closed for nearly two months due to storm damage throughout the school district. A staggered reopening was held, with the last group of closed school welcoming students back on Nov. 5.

Dixon Elementary School teacher Lorri DeValois has dealt with storm recovery efforts on two fronts.

Dixon Elementary was one of the last schools to reopen due to the storm damage and as school officials dealt with getting the school cleaned and ready for students' return, teachers and staff worked during the closure to stay in touch with students and provide learning opportunities.

"We worked really hard to connect with the students even when there was no physical school building to work in," she said.

And even now that they are back in class, DeValois said the storm still has an impact.

"There's an emotional piece and not just an academic piece to all this," she said. "We have children who are dealing with their own challenges because of the storm. This is not a normal school year for us; it is not the year that we expected."

Hurricane Florence also hit at home for DeValois, a Marine wife who evacuated with her two daughters the Wednesday before the storm and returned the Thursday after once power was restored.

DeValois said she knew they had some shingles missing off the roof of their Holly Ridge home but had no idea she'd find the extent of the damage that she did.

Water from the non-stop rain had poured into the house, collapsed ceilings and soaked carpet, drywall and flooring throughout. Doors were swollen and had to be forced open to get into the rooms of the house.

DeValois said they are now staying a few miles away in a rental house and she's not sure when her family will be able to move back home.

"We have a general contractor and roofing contractor ready to go; we're waiting on insurance approval to start," she said. "It's not that they have not been helpful but the insurance process takes time."

Once they do get approval, DeValois said they hope work on their home will be completed within about four months.

While there have been challenges over the past two months, DeValois said they are grateful because her family is OK and they have benefited from the good will of others.

DeValois said they were fortunate to find a rental home to stay in not far from home and work and The Raider Project, an organization that helps MARSOC and Marine combat veterans, stepped up to help them get all the wet carpet, flooring and other debris out of the house.

There have been challenges but DeValois said they have been able to adapt.

"That's our word of the year: flexibility," she said.

For many, the two months since Florence has been a waiting game.

Katie Kosma, Mrs. Copenhaver's daughter-in-law, lives in the same Holly Ridge neighborhood as DeValois.

Her house also sustained major water damage. They have been able to stay in their house but have been confined to living in the downstairs area for the past two months due to the extent of the damage upstairs.

Kosma said it has been important for her to stay focused on the positive side of the situation despite the challenges, particularly for her kids, ages 4, 6, and 8. They have had to sleep on a mattress in the living room for two months but Kosma said they've made it an extended "sleep over."

"There are homes that have had so much more damage than ours," she said. "We're still able to stay in our house and have made the best of it. If you look at it as a negative, it is going to be negative."

The one common denominator among all the families is the wait, whether it is waiting for an insurance claim, waiting for work by a contractor or inspector, or just waiting to get home.

Kosma said the biggest struggle for her has been dealing the insurance companies on claims.

For the Copenhavers, the initial challenge was finding a hotel within the area with a vacancy and willing to take pets. Mrs. Copenhaver said they were about ready to sleep in their car after going from hotel to hotel until they got help finding a room at TownePlace Suites.

The hotel is where they are staying as they make daily trips to their Northwoods home to do what work they can while they wait. The remediation work has been done and now they are ready for a contractor to rebuild.

With so much work being done in the area, finding available contractors or getting calls back have been difficult, the said. They understand that everyone is busy but they like everyone else displaced are ready to be home.

"Through all this we keep reminding ourselves we're still very fortunate," Mrs. Copenhaver said.

Reporter Jannette Pippin can be reached at 910-382-2557 or [email protected]. Reporter Kelsey Stiglitz contributed to this report.

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