Downtown Bakersville should have cleaner waters soon, as FEMA has approved cleaning up some of the excess silt in Cane Creek.
Mitchell County Manager Allen Cook said that the silt cleanup has been approved by the Federal Emergency Management Agency at a county commissioners’ meeting in early December.
“They have now got FEMA authorization … to get into the water here in Cane Creek and start doing some silt removal,” Cook said.
During Hurricane Helene (downgraded to a tropical storm after slowing down over land) in 2024, flooding in downtown Bakersville left a considerable amount of debris in the creek, as well as in parks, roadways and other areas near the banks.
Most of the woody debris was removed months ago, but property owners on the creek banks have been concerned that the thick buildup of dirt, gravel and other sediment in the creek itself will contribute to future floods.
However, there have been environmental concerns about removing the silt, as small aquatic creatures are presumed to be living in it now.
Private debris
Cook also gave an update on private property debris removal. Getting approval to remove debris from private property has been a slow process; the state of North Carolina has been avoiding initiating removal without federal approval because it wants to be sure that the cost of the removal will be reimbursed by FEMA.
Cook said the county has sent hundreds of packets of information on PPDR requests from county residents to FEMA for pre-approval and has been waiting for that pre-approval for months.
“It’s still planning to go forward,” Cook said. “It’s a very slow process.”
Cook said that state authorities feel that initiating debris removal projects on private property without FEMA pre-approval is just too risky.
“The state has decided they don’t want to risk having to pay,” he said. “They feel like they could lose tens of millions of dollars.”
Delays & challenges
At a Spruce Pine Town Council meeting this fall, a consultant with experience in disaster relief in multiple hurricane recovery situations said that getting FEMA approval for recovery efforts after Helene has been unusually difficult and time-consuming.
“This has certainly been one of the most challenging FEMA that we have dealt with in many years,” Tyson Hackenberg of Hunt Guillot & Associates told the Spruce Pine authorities.
Hackenberg said that the staff at FEMA currently sometimes does not appear to understand their own agencies rules and regulations.
“This is probably the first time we’ve seen FEMA behave in a very aggressive (way), and without regard for their policies and procedures that they’ve taken so many years to get right,” Hackenberg said.