Gov. Josh Stein visited flood-damaged Chapel Hill businesses and homes Friday afternoon, bringing a message that aid could be on the way.
Thursday, Stein declared a state of emergency for 13 North Carolina counties due to Chantal. Those counties run from Forsyth in the northwest to Wake in the east, dipping down to Chatham and Moore counties in the south.
The declaration was necessary, state officials said, to help bring state and federal recovery assistance to the region. The Division of Emergency Management is still working with local officials to assess how much damage was caused by the July 5 and 6 storm.
"We're obviously going to go to FEMA if we can justify seeking federal assistance. We absolutely will do that. But it will also help us trigger state support, we hope," Stein told reporters.
To be clear, the state of emergency was not declared when the actual flooding was occurring because state and local officials felt that they had adequate resources necessary to cope with the disaster. Governors often declare emergencies ahead of or during larger storms like Helene when they feel they will need assistance and personnel from other states or the federal government.
That was not the case with Chantal, Stein said.
"It was localized enough, and these folks know what they're doing enough that they were able to do the response necessary without the need of a declaration of an emergency," Stein said, gesturing to gathered state and local emergency officials behind him.
What aid could the state seek?
As he stood outside of Shelton Stokes' flood-damaged apartment in Camelot Village, Stein told him the state doesn't yet know what help is coming but is trying to figure it out as quickly as possible.
"We're going to do everything we can to tally up all the damage and see what kind of programs exist to help you, exist to help small business owners, that exist to help the town (and) the county. We want to do everything we can to help because this is terrible," Stein said.
Stein said there is not a set time limit for how long damage assessments must take.
Orange County officials previously estimated that Chantal caused $56.7 million in damage there, including $22.7 million to public facilities, $20.7 to commercial structures and $13.4 to residences. The floodwaters impacted 273 residences, with 190 people displaced, the county reported.
Will Ray, North Carolina's director of Emergency Management, told reporters the state is looking at individual assistance programs that help survivors and public assistance that helps local governments repair facilities like buildings and water plants.
Ray said individual assistance assessments are complete for Durham and Orange counties and that he expects decisions for those places "soon."
Public assistance assessments could take longer, Ray said, because floodwaters haven't receded in some areas. That's in part due to rounds of heavy rainfall after Chantal.
"We've not really been able to fully access them yet, so we've not been able to get engineering teams in to actually scope what that full damage is," Ray said.
The state could also seek assistance from the Small Business Administration.
"Some of the data that we got earlier this week and some of the assessment is going to help determine what case can we make to which agency and which routes to turn on which programs we can to try to get this community back on its feet," Ray said.
A visit to Eastgate shopping center
In frequently flooded Eastgate Crossing Shopping Center in Chapel Hill, Stein drove past a flooded-out Trader Joe's where workers were taking a break at a picnic table, his SUV passing a parking lot lined with disaster relief trailers. When he stepped out, Stein walked past a toilet in the parking lot to visit Olmaz Jewelers.
When he stepped inside the store, Stein saw drywall that had been removed virtually up to his head, allowing a view clear through the jewelery store to what had been the lobby of a wax studio next door.
Elie Abou-Rjeileh, Olmaz's owner, told Stein that not only had his store been flooded, but that his son attends Expedition Charter School in Hillsborough, where the Lower School suffered extensive damage from the flooding. The school year there has been pushed back a month, Abou-Rjeileh said.
As the storm made its way across North Carolina, it dropped more than 10 inches of rain in Chatham and Orange counties. Rivers like the Eno and the Haw neared or broke their record crests, with the Eno's 23.04-foot crest in central Orange County easily surpassing the previous high of 14.91 feet.
On the other side of Eastgate plaza, Stein visited Kipos Greek Taverna.
There, the bar area had been totally cleared out except for about a dozen cases of water bottles for relief teams working in temperatures that neared 100 degrees.
Opened in 1960, Eastgate was built on top of a creek, which runs through a culvert under the buildings and parking lot. It has flooded several times, including in 2018 when the remnants of Hurricane Florence passed over North Carolina.
Stein, who grew up in Chapel Hill, recalled pizza places that had been in the area during his childhood and how he worked out at a gym that was in the plaza.
"I know this place exceptionally well, and it hurts my heart that these business owners who've invested their blood, their sweat, their tears, their capital into building successful small businesses just to have it washed away in a single day," Stein said.
Stein also made a point to note that Chantal's floodwaters killed six people in North Carolina.
