Morganton still waiting on Helene funds while Drexel and Glen Alpine fully reimbursed

A year after Hurricane Helene swept through Western North Carolina, municipalities in Burke County are in varying stages of recovery. Smaller towns have been fully reimbursed, while Morganton is still working to recoup millions.

For Morganton, the damages are much more hefty, and according to City Manager Sally Sandy, the city may never be fully reimbursed. The city’s total damages equate to about $42-$45 million, an amount that could change once the city gets bids for permanent projects like the raw water intake and pump house projects.

The city has received $5.3 million from insurance and FEMA, with another $300,000 pending state processing. That leaves about $37 million left for the city to recover.

COMPLETED OR NEARING COMPLETION

• Waste treatment and lift stations: Work at the wastewater treatment plant and at the city’s water and sewer lift and pump stations is nearly complete. Sandy said the city is waiting on final pieces of equipment but expects the upgrades to be finished soon. Both projects are expected to strengthen the city’s infrastructure long-term.
• Electric restoration: Power restoration has been completed, but according to Sandy, FEMA has not approved reimbursement for the more than $3 million cost.
• Bethel Park: The park, which was already under construction before the storm hit, is expected to be completed by the end of the year. Crews are currently installing the playground equipment and will begin paving the track once that’s finished. The city requested $135,000 from FEMA for additional storm-related groundwork and engineering costs, but that request is still under review. Sandy said the city hasn’t given up and is continuing to pursue the funding.
• Catawba Meadows and Greenway: Sections of Catawba Meadows Park and the Catawba River Greenway have reopened. In the park, the Beanstalk playgrounds, beach volleyball court, disc golf course, picnic shelters, mountain bike trails, and bathrooms have reopened. The softball and baseball fields, along with the Beanstalk Ziplines remain closed. The greenway has reopened in most sections, excluding the area from the River Village Access to the Silver Creek Bridge, which remains closed due to the missing boardwalk. The Rocky Ford Access also remains closed, as it suffered significant damage.

PROJECTS IN DESIGN PHASES

• Boardwalk replacement: The city is finalizing engineering designs for the boardwalk replacement and expects to award construction bids later this fall. The goal is to begin work this winter and complete the project by next spring.
• Catawba River Soccer Complex and Catawba Meadows: Engineering contracts for new maintenance buildings at both the soccer complex and the park have not been awarded yet, Sandy said, but the city is working to get them awarded soon.
• Rocky Ford Greenway Access & River Weir: Work on these two projects is not ready to go out for bid, according to Sandy.
  
  

PROJECTS QUESTIONED BY FEMA

• Catawba Meadows maintenance building: The original building was damaged in the storm, and FEMA is currently reviewing whether to fund a replacement. The city hired an engineer to compare the cost of restoring the old structure to current building codes versus constructing a new facility — information FEMA will use to make its decision.

• Silver Creek Lift Station: FEMA is also questioning the city’s request for just over $1 million to repair storm damage at the Silver Creek lift station, which had already seen $8 million in work completed.

• Boardwalk safety assessment: FEMA heavily questioned funding the safety assessment tied to the boardwalk replacement project, but Sandy said the city hopes to roll that cost into the overall permanent repair funding.

THE PATH FORWARD

At this point, a year later, Sandy noted that at least 50% of her time every week is spent on recovery work. Some weeks she said it creeps up to 75%-80%. She added that the same sentiment is true among a group of five or six other city staff members. The engineers in the Development and Design Services department, she added, are still working at least 50% of the time on recovery work. Wate

“Some days it seems like [Hurricane Helene] was yesterday and we’re sitting down in utilities, living the hell of the next week, figuring out how we’re going to put enough pieces back together to begin to look toward a future,” Sandy said. “Some days it seems like it’s been 10 years. It’s like ‘when will this end?’

While the city is still under financial pressure as well as pressure with resources and the number of employees, Sandy said they are now balancing recovery work and current work.

Does the number get overwhelming at times? “Every day of my life,” Sandy said.

There’s a likelihood that the city will never recover funds for all of the losses, Sandy said. In talking with other municipalities that have been through disasters, Sandy said that they reported that they were able to get back around 80% of their damages. That still leaves $8-$10 million that the city might not recover.

However, Sandy said that regardless of whether the city is able to be reimbursed fully for all of the damages, she is confident that the City of Morganton will get back to where it was before Helene and be even better equipped to deal with anything that may arise in the future.

The city has been meeting with a representative from the Community Development Block Grant Disaster Recovery program, which could result in more aid from the state. Although the help from that program hasn’t been released for local governments to apply to yet, Sandy said they could help with projects, not just for disaster damage, but also projects that bring revitalization and resiliency. One example is the water interconnection project that’s in the works between Morganton, Valdese, and Drexel.

If that funding doesn’t recover all of the funding the city needs, Sandy said the city would have to take a look at the projects in their Capital Improvement Plan and shift some of those around based on what would be able to wait.

“It’s hard to see Creekside and it’s hard to see the people who, their lives are still in absolute turmoil because that process too, is moving, but it’s slow,” Sandy said. She added that seeing the majority of the greenway back open, seeing businesses moving back into River Village, and seeing cars almost in the street at Silver Creek, are all glimmers of hope that Morganton is returning to some sort of normalcy.

DREXEL

In Drexel, Town Manager Bill Carroll said the town has been fully reimbursed from the state and federal governments for the two projects that the town applied for, which included power restoration and emergency access operations.

Carroll said the town is still working on a debris removal project in utility right of ways. Although the town does not know the costs yet, they are using state contractors for the project.

Now, Carroll said that the town’s focus is improving resilience and mitigation efforts by seeking state and federal grants to help make utility facilities more resilient for future storms.

GLEN ALPINE

Over in Glen Alpine, the town received four reimbursements from FEMA, which were a total of $169,222, according to Crystal Carswell, the town’s administrator/clerk. The projects consisted of repairing a washout on Mode Street and paying employees for overtime who worked during and after Helene to clean up and remove debris.

Water and Sewer staff are also working on recovery-related projects around 25%-50% of the time.