Spa City’s flood recovery slowed by federal red tape

Sept. 16--WHITE SULPHUR SPRINGS -- Entire Spa City neighborhoods were destroyed by the deadly flash floods of 2016, scoured clean of houses and outbuildings, fences and garages.

But dozens of other homes were damaged, leaving their owners -- and the town -- with the dilemma of how to afford the repairs necessary to restore the structures to habitability or to tear down and rebuild. A tangle of federal red tape is at the heart of many of the delays.

According to Bo Belshee, White Sulphur's zoning officer and flood plain manager, decisions made by property owners in the immediate aftermath of the flood have served to lock them in to a particular program, sometimes to their detriment. More than two years after the flood, homeowners still are waiting for funding from the Hazard Mitigation Grant Program (HMGP) to either raze, elevate or reconstruct damaged houses.

Because they are already tied to the HMGP process, the owners can't switch over to the recently established HUD-funded Slum & Blight demolition program, overseen by the West Virginia National Guard, Belshee said. Nor can those properties be considered for action under the city's dilapidated properties ordinance.

Adopted little more than a month ago, that ordinance has allowed the city attorney to send cleanup notices to property owners whose problems do not stem from the flood, Belshee noted.

The notices warning that action needs to be taken have already proven to be effective. After receiving one of the first of the letters, Belshee said, absentee owners hired a contractor to demolish a Dickson Street house that was long ago gutted by fire.

"We're trying to do anything we can to make people be responsible for their property," Belshee said, noting that many of the structures that fall under the new ordinance are on properties acquired through tax sales.

City officials are also attempting to rid some neighborhoods' lawns of rusting, unlicensed vehicles, Belshee said.

"The city needs to adopt a maintenance code with enforcement provisions," he said. "Something that would create a standard to keep structures from getting in the shape they are now."

Belshee acknowledged that there is longstanding opposition in some quarters to codifying property maintenance standards. But he said the measure also has support.

"You can't please everybody," he said. "We're hoping, (in light of) the June 2016 event, that people will want to make the city better so we can be prepared the next time, if there is a next time."

----Taking a Register-Herald reporter and photographer on a tour through several of the city's flood-devastated residential areas last week, Belshee pointed out that many of the homes that had been destroyed or damaged beyond repair by the floods were built in a different era -- the 1920s, '30s, '40s and '50s -- when building codes weren't enforced and zoning laws didn't exist.

The areas through which Belshee drove included Mill Hill, which sustained massive damage from floodwaters that surged between three and four feet deep down the streets and through the houses. While many homes in that neighborhood await repairs that will involve elevation within the existing footprint, some were restored by the owners without elevating the structure.

"If another disaster strikes, the owners who opted not to elevate won't be eligible for federal funding for damage to those houses," Belshee said.

At the confluence of Wades Creek and Howards Creek, he said, "A lot of houses floated away from here."

The Neighbors Loving Neighbors charity, founded by Gov. Jim Justice and his family, rebuilt four homes in that neighborhood, Belshee said. In order to rebuild in what is now known as a flood-prone area, homes had to be elevated so that the lowest habitable floor was two feet above the base flood level. In addition, flood openings had to be installed in the crawlspace beneath.

The National Flood Insurance program required that the city put an ordinance in place in 2012 setting standards for flood elevations, Belshee said.

That was the same year that the federal government last updated White Sulphur's flood maps. Belshee said he hoped to see those maps revisited in the wake of the 2016 flood, but has been told it will be another two or three years before new maps are drawn.

Proceeding on to the Maple Street area, where 2016's floodwaters rose as high as six feet, quite a few former dwellings are earmarked for HMGP attention, Belshee said.

Those homes include a towering Victorian-style structure that is rumored to have been a granary before it was a private residence. Like many older homes, it was divided into apartments in later years. And in the aftermath of the flood, it is now only a decaying shell.

"We cannot include (the Victorian) in our Slum & Blight applications," Belshee noted. "That might jeopardize its HMGP money."

But, he said, HMGP funds to demolish the ruins may take as long as another two years to materialize out of the Federal Emergency Management Agency bureaucracy.

"We lost a lot of rental homes in White Sulphur Springs," Belshee said, adding, "There were a lot of homes in bad shape before the flood."

Driving up Big Draft Road, Belshee commented, "We lost a pretty good neighborhood here, but a lot of those folks have homes in Hope Village now."

A new 42-home neighborhood established after the flood and funded through the nonprofit Homes for White Sulphur Springs organization, Hope Village helped ensure the Spa City's loss of population and tax base due to migration would be minimal. Belshee said, in addition to flood-displaced White Sulphur residents, people who previously lived in nearby Harts Run and Caldwell and were flooded out also found homes in Hope Village.

----Even with the slow pace of progress in revitalizing or repurposing the neighborhoods disrupted by the 1,000-year flood, Belshee feels his town is bouncing back from the disaster.

New sidewalks are being built along Main Street, and plans are afoot for more shops to move into long-empty downtown storefronts, joining several others, including the popular Barnwood Living store and B Sweet Confectionery across the street from City Hall.

"Our total project goal is five years, but it could easily be a 10-year process with all of the red tape," Belshee said of the town's renewal. "Dilapidated structures are going to come and go. We just need to bring these properties back up to standard and move forward."

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