FEMA leaves Morganton flood victims in limbo after Hurricane Helene

Lynn Bowers was ready to come home.

After years in Raleigh, she purchased a house on Creekside Drive in Morganton with plans to retire near her brother and twin sister. She began making updates to the house and looked forward to a quiet future in a tight-knit street.

Then Hurricane Helene hit the mountains of North Carolina.

Her home was declared 80.6% destroyed. Because it wasn’t her primary residence, she didn’t qualify for the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA) individual repair grants. Now, eight months later, Bowers is stuck in limbo — unable to rebuild and still waiting to hear whether a FEMA buyout will provide a path forward.

“I’ve been in touch with city officials, the county, and even Warren Daniel, but no one seems to know anything,” Bowers said. “We’re all just waiting.”

At 110 Creekside Drive, Jeff Heacock walks through a house that’s more a construction site than home. Rooms once soaked by stormwater now have new walls and fresh paint.

He points to a stairwell to mark where water rose to the home’s second floor. He and his family had to be rescued during the storm. They lost keepsakes, photo albums, and a family cat.

Heacock was fortunate to have flood insurance, but he shares it wasn’t enough. He and his wife have drained their retirement savings to fill the gap.

“We’re literally borrowing from our future,” he said.

His family was able to move back in on June 27, but a sense of fear remains: “Every time it rains, I wonder if it’s going to happen again.”

Tonya Witherspoon lives on the right side of Creekside. She was at work at Valdese hospital when the hurricane struck. She raced back to her home, parking at Mimosa Hills Golf Course and walking to her home.

“I grabbed whatever I could, memories, shoes that didn’t match,” she said. Finally, bags of clothes started floating and I realized I needed to get out and leave it all behind — it was sickening.”

Early on, Witherspoon had tried to apply for the buyout program, but was told in March she didn’t qualify for it. So now she has sunk much of her savings into her house so that her son can buy it from her. “It feels like it’s all up to FEMA, and they’re not going to help,” she said. “I waited and waited, but now I’m just doing what I can.”

Vivian Radford and her husband, Dean, also chose to rebuild. They live on the left side of the street and, after much prayer and thought, decided to stay. They’re living in their son’s bedroom upstairs while finishing repairs day by day, project by project.

“I’ve basically become a general contractor,” she said, half-joking. “Every day there’s something — flooring, drywall, fixing what we just fixed.”

She recalls the stress of living in a camper after Hurricane Helene, still paying a mortgage, while trying to apply for grants, and working a full-time job.

Her greatest frustration is the lack of clear communication in the months following the hurricane.

“We didn’t even hear about the buyout program until Christmas,” she said. “Even if we still chose to rebuild, we deserved to know what our options were.”

Of the 21 homes in Creekside, she says that six are pursuing a buyout from FEMA. One resident chose to sell to a private investor below market value.

Radford worries her neighbors will wait months, or years, only for the program to fall through.

“What happens if they do everything right and the buyout never comes?” she asked. “Meanwhile, we’re rebuilding and worried we’ll be told mid-project that we should’ve elevated or need to change something.”

The FEMA Hazard Mitigation Grant Program is a voluntary buyout program designed to reduce future risk by purchasing flood-prone properties and converting them to permanent open space. If a property is accepted, FEMA will appraise the home at its pre-disaster value. If the homeowner’s independent appraisal falls within 10% of FEMA’s, the sale goes through. If not, a third appraisal is used.

But the process is slow, especially in North Carolina, where counties are reviewed in sequence based on when FEMA teams visited after the storm.

According to Deputy County Manager Alan Glines, Burke’s point person on the buyouts, the county is currently behind three other counties with no clear timeline.

“We’re doing everything we can, but we’re at the mercy of the state,” said Glines. “People want to move on, and they deserve to — but right now, we’re still in a holding pattern.”

Glines shared that his office has tried to reduce paperwork for permits, connect residents with grants, and support temporary housing when possible.

He knows residents are exhausted.

“These aren’t just homes on a street,” he said. This is people, family, their future, and their community.”

Though Creekside Drive is within Morganton city limits, the city itself is not involved in managing the logistics of the buyout program.

“We’re not a party to the process,” said City Manager Sally Sandy. “It’s being handled by the county and FEMA. We’re here to support residents as best we can, but we don’t have access to any more information than they do.”

Sandy acknowledged that early miscommunication made things worse. “We’ve had to walk things back, and that’s incredibly frustrating,” she said.

In anticipation of revised state floodplain maps, Morganton adopted a 3- to 5-foot elevation requirement for new construction in vulnerable zones. Sandy said it was a preventative measure, but knows it adds another hurdle.

“We don’t want to make things harder,” she said. “But we also want to be ready for the next storm.”

Despite the uncertainty, residents are incredibly thankful for the support they have received from the community: church groups removing debris and contractors working for free.

“It’s really hard to ask for help when you’re hurting,” Radford said. “But the outpouring from friends, family, and even strangers - people showing up when you don’t even know what to ask for - has been one of the most humbling and beautiful parts of all of this.”