Tag Archives: Fair Bluff

North Carolina town may never fully recover from double whammy of storms

Katrina Bullock, who is still in the process of rebuilding after floods from Hurricane Matthew in 2016, stacks debris in front of her home after flooding due to Hurricane Florence receded in Fair Bluff, North Carolina, U.S. September 29, 2018. REUTERS/Randall Hill

By Randall Hill

FAIR BLUFF, N.C. (Reuters) – The childhood home Katrina Bullock returned to in the rural North Carolina community of Fair Bluff about 16 years ago to care for her sick mother was devastated by flooding from Hurricane Matthew in 2016.

A new roof went up after that. Walls saturated with muddy floodwaters were being replaced and things were looking up until a new storm, Hurricane Florence struck about 23 months later in September.

Katrina Bullock, who is still in the process of rebuilding after floods from Hurricane Matthew in 2016, cleans the inside of her home after flooding due to Hurricane Florence receded in Fair Bluff, North Carolina, U.S. September 29, 2018. REUTERS/Randall Hill

Katrina Bullock, who is still in the process of rebuilding after floods from Hurricane Matthew in 2016, cleans the inside of her home after flooding due to Hurricane Florence receded in Fair Bluff, North Carolina, U.S. September 29, 2018. REUTERS/Randall Hill

“We were starting to get it all back together and there comes Florence, and it takes it all again,” said Bullock.

She and other residents of Fair Bluff, and of many other communities in the southern and southeast parts of North Carolina hit by the double whammy of Matthew and Florence, are sorting through the latest wreckage, wondering if it is worth remaining.

Settlers first arrived in the area around Fair Bluff in the mid-1700s and one of the oldest buildings in Columbus County, where the town is located, is a trading post built on the banks of the Lumber River in the town, according to the local chamber of commerce. In the 19th century, railroads helped keep the economy

flowing.

Experts say such hamlets and towns face permanent changes, with fewer residents, fewer businesses and fewer prospects of returning to the way things were just a generation ago. Older residents whose roots run deep and those too poor to leave will soon likely make up the bulk of the population.

Those who can will leave, but others will do their best to rebuild.

A sign in front of the Fair Bluff United Methodist Church gives a message to the community after flooding due to Hurricane Florence receded in Fair Bluff, North Carolina, U.S. September 29, 2018. REUTERS/Randall Hill

A sign in front of the Fair Bluff United Methodist Church gives a message to the community after flooding due to Hurricane Florence receded in Fair Bluff, North Carolina, U.S. September 29, 2018. REUTERS/Randall Hill

“There will be a real desire to make Fair Bluff the best it can be, but it may look and be a different thing from what it has historically been,” said Patrick Woodie, president of the NC Rural Center, an economic development organization.

Even before Florence hit, many small towns in North Carolina were struggling due to a decline in agriculture and manufacturing. Poverty rates in the state are higher now than in the aftermath of the recession about a decade ago due to the loss of small industries such as textile and a downturn in the farming sector, according to the North Carolina Justice Center, a progressive research and advocacy organization.

Matthew led to catastrophic flooding throughout low-lying eastern North Carolina and caused billions of dollars in damage. In took 28 lives in the United States while Florence killed more than 50 and drove many rural communities into deeper despair.

Fair Bluff is a mostly agricultural community with a Main Street book-ended by two churches and nestled next to the Lumber River, a usually peaceful waterway that flooded during both Matthew and Florence.

The town’s small commercial area was struggling to get back into business after Matthew and inundated again with Florence. Many wonder if it will ever open again.

Randy Britt take a break as he works to clean one of his downtown buildings after flooding due to Hurricane Florence receded in Fair Bluff, North Carolina, U.S. September 29, 2018. REUTERS/Randall Hill

Randy Britt take a break as he works to clean one of his downtown buildings after flooding due to Hurricane Florence receded in Fair Bluff, North Carolina, U.S. September 29, 2018. REUTERS/Randall Hill

Almost all the stores on Main Street closed after Matthew and when Florence rolled in, the floodwaters brought fresh destruction to places like a furniture shop that had yet to remove all of its water-logged inventory from two years ago.

After the flooding from Florence receded, a dark muck covered floors in affected areas and a smell wafted through the air combining odors of moldy rot and a sewage plant that overflowed in the most recent storm.

Fair Bluff Mayor Billy Hammond believes the town had about 1,000 residents before Matthew and was left with about half that afterward, with many evacuees just never returning.

The permanent population now is probably about 350 to 400, most of them are people whose homes were not flooded, he said.

“It has been a ghost town for about two years,” he said in an interview. “We’re just going have to take it one day at a time and move forward and hope that people come back,” he said.

Fair Bluff is about 125 miles (200 km) south of Raleigh. About 21 percent of the population lives below the poverty line and median household income is $28,611, according to U.S. Census data. In Mecklenburg County, North Carolina, home to the vibrant city of Charlotte, median household income is more than double that in Fair Bluff and the poverty rate is about half.

In low-lying areas near the river where some of the poorest people in Fair Bluff live, many have returned to storm-damaged homes because they do not have the money to move or rebuild.A disproportionate number of low-income people live in floodplains in river communities, according to Gavin Smith, a professor in the Department of City and Regional Planning at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Randy Britt, 71, who has lived in Fair Bluff all his life

owns buildings on the Main Street commercial area and is working to re-open a flood-hit store.

“There is always hope. If there wasn’t hope, I wouldn’t be in Fair Bluff right now,” he said in an interview.

(Additional reporting by Dan Whitcomb in Los Angeles and Jon Herskovitz in Austin, Texas; Writing by Jon Herskovitz; Editing by Frank McGurty and Tom Brown)

Looming Hurricane Florence heaps despair on rural U.S. towns ravaged by 2016 storm

Eve Waddell, daughter Ella, 6, and her husband, acting police chief of Chadbourn, North Carolina, Anthony Spivey, take stock out in the backyard of their home ahead of Hurricane Florence in Fair Bluff, North Carolina, U.S., September 12, 2018. REUTERS/Patrick Rucker

By Patrick Rucker

FAIR BLUFF, N.C. (Reuters) – When Hurricane Matthew submerged the small town of Fair Bluff, North Carolina, two years ago, Eve Waddell thought she had witnessed a once-in-a-lifetime disaster.

“You’ll never see that again,” she reassured her daughter Ella, then 4, after floodwaters surged over the banks of the Lumber River, inundating Fair Bluff with several feet of water and damaging her house.

As Hurricane Florence barreled toward the state on Wednesday, Waddell packed up her family to seek shelter with relatives and said she was ready to leave town for good – just as many businesses and hundreds of residents did after Matthew in 2016.

“This old town’s had it,” said her husband, Anthony Spivey, the police chief in a nearby municipality.

Meteorologists warn the menacing storm could stall out over the Carolinas, dumping enormous amounts of rainfall and creating massive flooding.

That was the case with Matthew, a less powerful hurricane that did most of its damage inland, producing catastrophic levels of flooding throughout low-lying eastern North Carolina and causing billions of dollars in damages.

Rural, low-income communities like Fair Bluff – already beset by economic difficulties – were hardest hit and remain most at risk this week.

Approximately 125 miles (200 km) south of Raleigh, Fair Bluff is 38 percent white and 60 percent African-American, with a median household income of $17,000, according to state figures.

Its downtown district has been a virtual ghost town since Matthew, with a dozen empty storefronts still bearing the marks of the storm’s fury.

A grimy scar cuts across retail windows, marking the height of the flooding. In a furniture shop, neatly arranged bedroom sets moldered; an abandoned hardware store was still stocked with ovens, washing machines and refrigerators.

Before the storm, Fair Bluff had nearly 1,000 residents, said Al Leonard, the town’s part-time administrator. He estimated more than a quarter left and have not returned since Matthew.

“We base our calendar on B.C. or A.D.,” Leonard said. “In Fair Bluff, they base their calendar on Before Matthew and After Matthew. Matthew changed everything.”

RURAL DEVASTATION

Other rural communities around the state’s eastern half tell a similar story.

Lumberton, a larger nearby town of approximately 21,000 people along the Lumber River, saw nearly 900 homes severely damaged by Matthew, including hundreds of low-income renters who lost their residences, according to a state report.

In Princeville, known as the oldest community settled by freed slaves in the United States, hundreds of homes were severely damaged by flooding from the Tar River.

The agricultural community of Goldsboro, along the Neuse River, saw hundreds of homes and substantial livestock destroyed.

Many low-income communities were already buffeted by a decline in manufacturing and agriculture, as well as the aftermath of the 2007-09 recession, according to Barry Ryan, vice president of the nonprofit NC Rural Center, which helps support rural counties.

“These communities are aging rapidly,” he said. “There’s been a general market downturn – somewhat driven by population loss, somewhat driven by economic restructuring.”

Jeff Axelberg, a member of Fair Bluff’s Chamber of Commerce who markets sweet potatoes, said the farmers he works with are worried because Florence is arriving so early in the season, with only about 10 percent of the crop in.

“They’re working day and night to get what they can out of the ground,” he said.

Long-term solutions are elusive. Some in town have suggested recruiting a canoe operator or other tourist draw to Fair Bluff, turning the river from a liability into an opportunity, Axelberg said.

Residents and business owners have often found it challenging to navigate state and federal bureaucracies in search of recovery and repair funds.

In many communities, homeowners are only now starting to receive money through the state’s hazard mitigation grant program to sell, elevate or rebuild their homes.

The smallest towns are also hamstrung by a lack of administrative capacity. Leonard, Fair Bluff’s administrator, also serves as the town’s water system supervisor, town planner and budget director.

He spends one day per week in Fair Bluff because he also holds the position of town administrator for four other nearby municipalities.

On Wednesday, he watched as laborers laid brick for a police office extension off the back of Fair Bluff’s town hall, which officials moved to just outside the flood zone after Matthew.

“Last time, this was high ground,” Leonard said. “We’ll just have to wait and see.”

(Reporting by Patrick Rucker in Fair Bluff, North Carolina; Additional reporting and writing by Joseph Ax in New York; Editing by Colleen Jenkins and Lisa Shumaker)