Nearly one year ago today, Hurricane Matthew hugged the coast of the southeastern U.S. heading towards North Carolina. With it came severe winds and rain that caused intense flooding in the eastern part of the state. Inland flooding, in some cases combined with storm surge, left many roads, homes, and businesses completely inundated. In response to the critical impacts of Matthew, the Disaster Recovery Act of 2016 directed the North Carolina Emergency Management to facilitate and oversee the creation of resilient redevelopment plans for the 50 counties declared federal disaster areas.
We assisted the state and our assigned counties in developing strategic, resilient redevelopment plans and helped define any unmet funding requirements needed to implement such actions after taking into account other funding sources.
A Three-Step Process
The planning process was a highly collaborative effort that entailed three robust rounds of discovery, analysis, collaboration, and interaction with county officials, staff, municipal leaders, and the public on damage, needs, and strategies. The three steps included:
1. Three on-site meetings and discussion with subject matter experts and planners: the first meeting involved validation and discovery of data pertaining to damage and impacts; the second dealt with review and feedback on first drafts of resilient redevelopment strategies; and the last focused on refinement, feedback, and completion of draft resilient redevelopment strategies.
2. Drafting the resilience plans: efforts were focused on the "five pillars" of housing, infrastructure, economic development, environment, and agriculture. Since a lot of the flooding and damage had subsided when we arrived, we relied on the communities to show us the damaged areas of interest. Our teams brought maps and officials pointed to where issues were and describe what had happened.
3. Delivering resilience strategies based on the five pillars.
From Hog Farms to Major Coastal Ports—No Two Resilience Strategies are the Same
Each community we worked with was unique—some more urban, others rural or coastal—we got to really dig into what the critical issues were for each area we helped. We worked with a county that housed multiple military bases; one that was home to the largest port in the area; and another that had several hog farms in the floodplain. The communities we worked with were not significantly impacted by Hurricane Matthew, but they had suffered substantial losses from other recent storms such as Hurricane Irene in 2011. While the Resilient Redevelopment Program focused on Hurricane Matthew, the plans and associated projects intend to improve the resilience from future disastrous events; so we framed the program for our communities in terms of these other recent, more impactful hurricanes.
From addressing issues with flooded roads and establishing emergency management shelters to dealing with faulty communication towers and extended power outages, the unique requirements of each municipality we worked with illustrates how important it is to treat no two areas the same—each one has different resilience requirements.
A True Challenge—Meeting a Two-Month Timeline
One of the biggest challenges of this project was the two-month timeline, during which we held the three outreach meetings, drafted the plans, and developed resilience strategies for each of the five pillars for each county we worked with. Despite the numerous challenges, we were able to develop the strategies necessary to better prepare these counties for the next event that may come their way.
County officials played an instrumental part in the planning process; we couldn't have successfully completed this project without their collaboration. They provided us with valuable data and access to many individuals upon request, helping complete the whole picture.