NCDP Clips 9/25/18

Tides to force waves of floodwater into Wilmington
WRAL // Amanda Lamb // September 24, 2018
Summary: The Cape Fear River could crest near record levels in Wilmington during each high tide over the next couple of days, officials said Monday. Water Street in downtown Wilmington was flooded during Hurricane Florence a week ago, but the water receded as the storm moved inland. But as the rain Florence dumped into the Cape Fear River basin works its way back down to the ocean, Wilmington officials and business owners are preparing for more downtown flooding. High tides through Wednesday could put the river at record levels of close to 8 feet, WRAL meteorologist Elizabeth Gardner said.

State DPI website shut down during Florence — and sent people to superintendent’s site
N&O // T. Keung Hui // September 24, 2018
Summary: As Hurricane Florence bore down on North Carolina this month, the state agency that oversees public schools shut down its website and referred people to a new website created by State Superintendent Mark Johnson. Critics of Johnson are charging that it was a politically motivated decision to shut down the state website and to direct traffic to Johnson’s website, www.ncsuperintendent.com. But state education officials say they shut the state website down as a safety precaution and referred people to Johnson’s website and to the State Board of Education’s website, stateboard.ncpublicschools.gov, to make sure people had a place to go during the storm. “We had a time-critical decision to make and I made a decision based on what my abilities were to have a page that would be up,” Drew Elliott, chief of communications for the state Department of Public Information, said in an interview. The decision has generated a buzz on social media sites for teachers in the state.

FEMA

What you need to know to apply for assistance from FEMA
ABC 11 // Diane Wilson // September 24, 2018
Summary: Residents who lost their homes and valuables to Hurricane Florence are hoping to get relief right away. If you have insurance then you should first file a claim with your insurance company, whether that be homeowners, renters or flood insurance. You will not know if you qualify for FEMA assistance unless you apply for aid. When it comes to FEMA relief, the agency has already approved more than $20 million for those individuals who applied for assistance.

Agricultural Impact

Ag official tours farm damage in Duplin County
WRAL // Staff // September 24, 2018
Summary: The head of the United States Department of Agriculture was able to see the impact of Hurricane Florence first-hand on Monday. Sonny Perdue made the visit to Duplin County to see the devastation farmers now have to face. "It gives you a sense of security that Washington is paying attention to what is going on here in rural America," said Elwood Garner, a farm manager at Dail Farms. Perdue toured Dail Farms, where 12 chicken houses flooded during the storm. "I would dare guess that we're looking at somewhere around three to four weeks with no animals on the farm, trying to get back in production," Garner said. That time is money that farmers don't have to waste, especially on the heels of Hurricane Matthew.

Coal Ash

Duke Energy reports arsenic, metals elevated slightly in river in Sutton flooding
Charlotte Biz Journal // John Downey // September 24, 2018
Summary: Water-quality tests on the Cape Fear River near Duke Energy Progress’ flooded Sutton Power Plant show elevated levels of arsenic and heavy metals downstream from the breach of Sutton Lake Dam. But the levels remain “well within the rigorous state water quality standards in place to protect the environment,” the company says. The highest test result for arsenic, for instance, was 1.11 thousandths of a milligram per liter of water. That is far below the 50 thousandths of a milligram limit set in state standards. Levels for metals were generally closer to the maximum allowed by state standards, though all remained below those allowable levels set by the state. Iron downstream of the plant was at 2.2 milligrams per liter on Friday, the day the flooding river caused breaches in the lake dam, and 2.12 milligrams per liter Saturday.

Coal ash spill leaves North Carolina to ‘watch and wait and hope and pray’
Energy News Network // Elizabeth Ouzts // September 24, 2018
Summary: The Cape Fear River continued to flood a coal ash dump near Wilmington, North Carolina through the weekend, and the full extent of its environmental and public health impact remained unknown. “We need to be extremely concerned because we have a major river system overflowing in an unlined coal ash storage pit,” said Frank Holleman, an attorney with the Southern Environmental Law Center. “As we sit here with floodwaters raging, all we can really do is watch and wait and hope and pray.” As of Sunday, the spill was ongoing at Duke Energy’s Sutton power plant, where two unlined, earthen pits of 2.1 million cubic yards of coal ash and a cooling pond, Sutton Lake, sit next to the Cape Fear River. Since Friday, the river, cresting after record rainfalls – combined with breaches in the dam between the lake and the river – has caused water to mix between the river, the lake, and one of the pits. Neither of the coal ash dumps themselves are damaged, both the utility and regulators said.

North Carolina river swirls with gray muck near flooded coal ash dump
PBS // Michael Biesecker, AlanSuderamn // September 22, 2018
Summary: Gray muck is flowing into the Cape Fear River from the site of a dam breach at a Wilmington power plant where an old coal ash dump had been covered over by Florence’s floodwaters. Forecasters predicted the water will continue to rise Saturday at the L.V. Sutton Power Station. Duke Energy spokeswoman Paige Sheehan said the utility doesn’t believe the breach poses a significant threat of increased flooding to nearby communities. Sheehan said the company can’t rule out that ash might be escaping the flooded dump and flowing through the lake into the river. No environmental regulators were at the scene to help catalog the potential harm to the Cape Fear, with officials citing unsafe conditions. Mike Regan, secretary of the state Department of Environmental Quality, said Saturday that aerial video and photos of the site show “potential coal ash” flowing into the river. “When the environment is conducive, we will put people on the ground to verify the amount of potential coal ash that could have left and entered those flood waters,” Regan said.

Education Disruption

Hurricane Florence and the politics of calendar flexibility
EdNC // Alex Granados // September 24, 2018
Summary: One of the likely reasons why Johnson and Moore are suggesting forgiving the missed days from the hurricane is because the amount of time missed is enough that it may be extremely difficult or even impossible for districts to make up the time within the mandated start and stop dates of the school year. Back in 2015, a huge number of bills were filed to grant calendar flexibility to different school districts and even statewide. They went nowhere. And these kinds of bills have continued to go mostly nowhere year after year. The question is will this hurricane spark reform? After Hurricane Matthew in 2016, some districts were similarly forgiven for the days they missed, and yet calendar flexibility still remained basically off the table in the North Carolina General Assembly. There is no reason to think that this time things will be different. But the call for flexibility has been increasing. If you’re wondering why legislators have such a hard time championing the topic, it’s because of the tourism industry. The industry relies on summer vacation season for the success of its businesses. Industry leaders worry that calendar flexibility could change the make up of that season and eat into their profits. Seeing as summer business is an integral part of the state’s economy, it’s understandable that legislators would be reluctant to do anything that might impact it negatively.

Florence & Climate Change

Florence floods damaged thousands more homes because of sea level rise, study shows
N&O // Abbie Bennett // September 24, 2018
Summary: If the ocean was at the same level it was in 1970, thousands of homes could have been spared storm surge flooding from Hurricane Florence, a recent study shows. Scientists at First Street Foundation (FSF) — a technology nonprofit dedicated to increasing awareness of sea level rise — used data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, U.S. Geological Survey, the National Weather Service, local governments, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and more to determine sea levels and the number of homes affected by Florence storm surge. Their work shows that sea level rise since 1970 led to greater damage — 11,000 more homes affected, they say. Storm surge, or the sea rising because of a weather event, affected more than 51,000 homes in the Carolinas and Virginia. Scientists with FSF considered a home affected by Florence storm surge if water pushed over at least 25 percent of the property. The scientists modeled the same storm surge using sea level observed in 1970 and discovered that if the sea level had not gone up, 11,000 homes might have been spared, “signaling that sea level rise is responsible for these additional impacts,” FSF said in its report.

Trump/GOP Trade War & Hurricane Recovery

Tariffs to Raise Cost of Rebuilding After Hurricane Florence
NY Times // Nelson D. Schwartz // September 21, 2018
Summary: When the floodwaters from Hurricane Florence recede and rebuilding kicks into high gear, homeowners and businesses will face an additional burden as tariffs imposed by the Trump administration drive up the cost of construction materials. Homebuilders and contractors say the administration’s trade policy will add to the price increases that usually follow natural disasters. In addition to materials like lumber, steel and aluminum, the United States will impose tariffs on $200 billion in Chinese imports next week, including countertops, furniture and gypsum, a key ingredient in drywall. All told, some builders estimate that construction costs could be 20 to 30 percent higher than they would have been without these tariffs. “We’re all going to pay the price for it in terms of higher construction costs,” said Alan Banks, president of the North Carolina Home Builders Association. Perhaps the biggest impact will come from wood prices, which are up 40 percent from a year ago. The Trump administration imposed a 20 percent tariff on Canadian softwood lumber late last year, and supply shortages have also driven up prices.