Mary Lynn Manns’ two-bedroom home sits on a tranquil patch of land near the Swannanoa River.
When she moved in a decade ago, she expected to live the rest of her life in the house. Then, Hurricane Helene caused the river to swell nearly 30 feet high, flooding the foundation. Since then, Manns, along with many of her peers in East Asheville’s River Knolls neighborhood, have been unable to return to their homes.
“The foundations are in bad shape,” Manns said. “You can't just put up a house. And plus, we've had the discussion, should we do this? We're clearly now in a floodplain. Would it be right to rebuild that house? The idea of rebuilding in an area that's clearly a problem just doesn't seem like the proper ethical thing to do.”
When she purchased the home a decade ago, the location was not designated as a high-risk flood zone by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, and her mortgage did not require flood insurance, she said. Now, the river bank has widened, encroaching further into the neighborhood.
One house just down the road from Manns now sits right on the edge of the bank. The floodwaters swept away the land, leaving a precipitous slope in place of the backyard.
“People had little gardens back here. There was land,” Manns said. “And the land's completely gone now.”
Scenarios like these are why FEMA started the Hazard Mitigation Grant Program. The agency doesn’t want people to rebuild homes in a floodplain, where they're likely to flood again, so it offers homeowners the option to sell their property at pre-storm values, rebuild the home on stilts or relocate it.
“We're trying to be as communicative as we can to homeowners who may be waiting. The reality is we've submitted the information for so many of those folks and we don't have a whole lot of information to share other than to affirm, yes, we have submitted them.”
Matt Calabria, director of Grown NC
But Manns, who applied for the program last November, is growing increasingly concerned about when – or even if – she’ll receive money for her property. Over the last few months, state officials have raised concerns about FEMA’s response time and its commitment to moving the program forward. The agency has not approved any buyouts yet, though the first batch of applications was submitted nearly 10 months ago. More than 500 applications, totaling more than $240 million in property value, sit stagnant, awaiting a sign-off from FEMA, according to multiple officials from the state’s emergency management office.
“We're trying to be as communicative as we can to homeowners who may be waiting,” Matt Calabria, the director of Grown NC, said at a November meeting. “The reality is we've submitted the information for so many of those folks and we don't have a whole lot of information to share other than to affirm, yes, we have submitted them.”
FEMA has awarded some of the $1.5 billion dollars it set aside as part of the Hazard Mitigation Program, but none of the money has gone towards home buyouts. The agency has awarded $466,000 to Clyde and $600,000 to Greenville. The money will support the engineering and planning costs for flood mitigation in both communities. The North Carolina Emergency Management department has also been awarded roughly $19 million to manage and implement the Hazard Mitigation Program, but nothing can move forward without the agency’s final approval.
State presses FEMA to move forward
This month, Governor Josh Stein wrote a letter to the new FEMA Administrator Karen Evans, urging the agency to “be responsive to the needs of North Carolinians.”
Stein’s letter also criticized the agency’s delays with its Public Assistance program, which provides reimbursements to local governments for Helene recovery projects like debris removal and road repair.
“Further delay of these approvals keeps communities and families in limbo, in some cases paying expenses on homes they cannot live in while they await word from FEMA,” Stein wrote, of the buyout delays. “Your efforts to begin and accelerate the program would greatly benefit the people of western North Carolina.”
FEMA declined an interview request with BPR, but wrote in an email that the majority of the applications “are currently ineligible” because they don’t meet certain program requirements. The agency also said it would be “factually incorrect” to report that the program has stalled.
William Ray, the Director of the North Carolina Department of Emergency Management, disputed some of FEMA’s claims in an interview with BPR.
“We do not have anything in hand that says that officially things are ineligible,” he said, adding that FEMA’s operations are moving slower than normal.
“What I have seen and what I've heard from my colleagues is there seems to be a general hesitation, a slow down, related to hazard mitigation nationally."
William Ray, director of North Carolina's Department of Emergency Management
“What I have seen and what I've heard from my colleagues is there seems to be a general hesitation, a slow down, related to hazard mitigation nationally,” Ray said. He pointed to FEMA’s recent decision not to approve hazard mitigation funding in North Carolina’s Triangle after Tropical Storm Chantal damaged more than 200 homes and apartments as an example.
In the case of Helene funding, FEMA contends the majority of applications for buyouts are not meeting the “open space” requirement, which mandates that any property obtained through the Hazard Mitigation program remains as an open green space in perpetuity, with a “clear title, no deed restrictions, and assurances the property will stay undeveloped.”
On some applications, the state has asked for an exemption on this “open space” requirement. That’s because in the places where Helene caused roads to crumble away, the only way to rebuild the road is through additional land use, Ray said.
“That, fundamentally, is one of the challenges we're navigating right now. DOT may need a portion of a parcel of property for repair or reconstruction of a roadway that was existing due to a river change or landscape change,” Ray said. “There are areas where there's not a whole lot of options of where to put the roadway.”
Ray added that typically the state doesn’t face significant delays when trying to move projects forward.
“In past events, we have had much different interaction with our regional office and their ability to make decisions and kind of move things forward. So this has been a different experience,” he said.
Justin Graney, a spokesperson for the state's Emergency Management department, maintained that many of the pending applications are not asking for an “open space” exemption.
“Many of the applications pending approval either do not include properties caught between two Federal policies or a portion of properties that can be approved. The State continues to advocate for quick approval of these vital projects,” Graney wrote.
Meanwhile, rent and mortgage bills stack up
As this back and forth between the state government and FEMA continues, more than 500 damaged properties in Western North Carolina remain in limbo.
Chad Berginnis, the executive director of the Association of State Floodplain Managers, said he’s never seen anything like this.
“We're watching our savings just dwindle and dwindle and dwindle and we're going, "Oh my God, how much longer can we do this?” Homeowner Mary Lynn Manns
“It is unfathomable to me that we're at the place where the federal government is dragging its feet so much and that we don't have any answers,” he said.
He’s worried about the impact this will have on disaster survivors.
“I fear for the homeowner that [are] waiting on these grants,” he said. “At some point, are they going to have to declare bankruptcy because they waited on the federal government?”
Mary Lynn Manns is worried, too. Right now, she’s on the hook for three monthly payments – a $900 mortgage, a $500 HOA fee and a $1,500 dollar monthly rent on an apartment.
“We're watching our savings just dwindle and dwindle and dwindle and we're going, "Oh my God, how much longer can we do this?” she said.
The only reprieve in sight is coming from her HOA. Right now the association is in discussions about reducing the monthly by $300 a month
