Residents seek flood recovery aid

Feb. 27--For years, the canal behind Nathaniel Grant Jr.'s house added ambiance to relaxing card nights with friends in his gazebo or cookouts on his porch.

The small creek along St. Andrews Drive lost its appeal when Hurricane Matthew caused it to breach the banks and flood the 77-year-old man's home. Now the home is uninhabitable, but the retired educator is forced to continue paying the mortgage -- a financially taxing predicament.

"I moved there in 1999 and it flooded with Floyd, but they repaired it and I moved back in. Now 17 years later, it flooded again," Grant said. "This time, when the adjuster came and wrote it up for repairs, he said it was eligible, but when it came time to get a permit from the city, they said I couldn't repair it unless it is elevated."

Grant was among the attendees of a Tuesday night meeting at Wilson City Hall to learn about hazard mitigation funds through the Federal Emergency Management Agency. N.C. Emergency Management Hazard Mitigation Specialist Tiffany Parker gave an overview of the options available to Wilson residents, which includes raising damaged homes above the base flood elevation, a buyout where owners receive a check based on pre-disaster fair market value and the house is demolished, or hazard mitigation where a house is destroyed and a new elevated house is constructed on the site.

"The only other way to get the third option is if the (engineers) survey the house and find that the foundation is damaged, so it could collapse if they jack it up," Parker said.

Grant said he applied for the funding and is hoping to be approved for a buyout.

"I'm done with it," he said of his former home. "I just can't take the stress at my age. It shouldn't be this way, but it is just the way it is."

He recently purchased a home on Nash Street -- his primary requirement when he was house-hunting was freedom from the floodplain -- yet he still goes back to his home near the Wilson Country Club on a daily basis, getting his mail and sorting through the remainder of his damaged possessions.

When his insurance company planned to repair the damage, several feet of drywall throughout the home was removed, but evidence of the flood is ever-present from the water line on glass doors to green mold spores on a pair of his shoes in the garage.

"Devastating, huh?" Grant said. "It is all right, though. This too shall come to pass."

Officials said federal funds are a long-term solution.

"Hurricane Matthew was a very unique event because there was a lot of people located outside of the 100-year floodplain that were very severely affected by Matthew. It was very unusual and catastrophic in that respect," said Nick Burk, state emergency management section manager for mitigation grants. "Mitigation is designed primarily to mitigate within the 100-year flood zone, but we recognized that there were a lot of houses hit outside it, so we're trying to do innovative collaboration with FEMA to see if those can qualify as well."

Wilson is among the 50 counties in the state that were included in a federal disaster declaration, making county residents eligible for aid. Local applications are due to the city Friday and to the state by the end of March.

Burk said staff at the state level will perform an analysis of the applications, then submit the grants to FEMA. Grant awards are anticipated in late summer or early fall, which means construction will start soon after for the worst affected.

"Areas that we're all familiar with such as Edgecombe and Robeson counties were hit especially hard and we're seeing numbers in the hundreds in terms of hazard mitigation applicants," Burk said. "From the first intake, Wilson was not at that magnitude, but it is possible additional applications could be brought in."

Nancy and Chris Mockridge applied Tuesday in hopes of raising the mobile home they share with relatives. When Hurricane Matthew hit, their own mobile home next door was destroyed and insurance deemed it a total loss.

They said getting a buyout would force them to take on a home loan they can't afford, but elevating the shared residence would hopefully alleviate the flood hazard.

Parker explained to attendees that the money paid in a buyout covers mortgages first, so if a mortgage is more than the home's value, then the difference would be the homeowners' burden.

Another question broached by an attendee was whether previous refusal of a buyout makes residents ineligible this time around, but Burk said there is currently no penalty.

"What is really important to note is that Pamlico County had almost no severe disaster losses to their residential housing stock following Matthew," he said. "After Hurricane Irene, approximately 115 homes were elevated and bought out. Some of those were long-term construction projects that were going on through 2016, but it shows these resiliency programs mitigate damage in the next disaster."

Elevating a house can mean 3-5 months of construction in addition to engineering studies, so many of the grant applicants should be prepared for a lengthy process.

"You'll see a lot of activity about 18 months from now and you'll start seeing some activity for the most severely hit cases about 10 months from now," Burk said.

As for Grant, he is moving forward as he waits to hear about his application. His beloved gazebo was recently moved to his new home and he's given up life as a hot tub owner since his first spa was destroyed by Hurricane Floyd and the replacement was carried by floodwaters to the French doors of his master bedroom in October.

He's slowly replacing his furniture, but he misses the recent upgrades he'd added to his St. Andrews Drive home.

"I love the countertops and that backsplash, but I can't use them anymore," he said as he shrugged his shoulders. "It is what it is. I try to keep upbeat because there is nothing more I can do."

To learn more about aid programs, visit www.disasterassistance.gov or www.fema.gov.

[email protected] -- 265-7821

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