Scores of waterfront property owners in Mecklenburg County are slowly moving forward with government programs to acquire or elevate their homes almost four months after Tropical Storm Helene, and later Duke Energy, upended their lives.
Despite Charlotte being more than 100 miles away from the storm’s center, Helene dumped enough water into the Catawba River last September to overfill the chain of man-made lakes maintained by the utility company.
When Norman, the largest of these lakes, couldn’t hold any more excess water, Duke opened the floodgates on Cowan’s Ford Dam.
The result was disastrous: Downstream communities were drenched.
On the Mecklenburg County side of the Catawba, floodwaters damaged about 170 structures. Those waters crested nearly eight feet high on Mountain Island Lake, which sits directly below Lake Norman and provides the majority of Charlotte’s drinking water.
Also affected were at least six structures in Gaston County.
In late October, Duke filed an incident report with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, focusing mostly on the damage and needed repairs to its own hydropower facilities.
According to the report, Duke "stayed in direct contact with county emergency management agencies and provided real-time information regarding current conditions and anticipated reservoir levels. ... Duke Energy personnel disconnected power to certain homes and in some cases, to entire streets as directed by emergency management authorities and later reconnected them as directed."
However, nowhere in that report did the utility mention the property damage in Mecklenburg and Gaston counties following the decision to open the floodgates.
Around the same time, flood victim Erik Jendresen submitted a letter to the commission urging the agency to further examine Duke’s actions in the week leading up to Helene.
“Why, in advance of what proved to be one of the most accurately forecast meteorological events in recent memory, did Duke Energy not commence immediately to lower the levels of each and every one of the 11 lakes that comprise the Catawba-Wateree River Basin,” according to Jendresen’s letter.
However, the commission issued a letter to Duke on Jan. 14 accepting the utility’s explanation on how the incident was handled, presumably ending federal inquiry into the matter.
Duke Energy spokesman Ben Williamson confirmed on Tuesday that the commission isn’t requesting any additional information regarding the company’s dam operations or communications during the storm.
But while the federal government appears satisfied, residents along the Catawba are a different story.
Duke Energy and 'trust'
Mountain Island Lake's tight-knit community has been here before. A group of residents sued and later settled with the utility after a similar event in 2019.
Now, some of those same people are in a waiting game to see what will happen with their homes.
Flood victims told Carolina Public Press that they believe Duke Energy was once again not proactive enough in moving water through the system ahead of the storm, which could have significantly reduced the severity of the flood.
“What's really failed here is the trust,” resident Gidget Dennehy said. “Unfortunately, because Duke doesn't have the integrity to step up to this community and to acknowledge wrongdoing, it's the government that steps in … People look to them and blame them when we should be blaming Duke.”
Recovering and rebuilding
Two programs are available to Mecklenburg residents for home buyouts or elevations in the aftermath of the Duke Energy controversy.
A county-run program has drawn a number of takers. According to Jonathan Beller, a flood mitigation specialist at Charlotte-Mecklenburg Storm Water Services, 45 property owners have expressed interest in a buyout.
Beller also said 15 property owners have expressed interest in the county’s retroFIT program, which would cover the cost of either a home elevation or demolition.
Meanwhile, the state administers its own buyout, elevation and reconstruction programs using federal dollars from FEMA’s Hazard Mitigation Grant Program. Mecklenburg County property owners have submitted 61 buyout applications, 38 elevation applications, two land stabilization requests and one mitigation reconstruction application, said Justin Graney, a spokesman for North Carolina Emergency Management.
That’s one source of monetary relief flood victims are banking on. But there could be another.
Duke Energy lawsuit redux?
Residents have yet to file any lawsuits against Duke — like they did in 2019 — although that may still happen.
David Spence, a professor at the University of Texas who specializes in regulation of renewable energy, told CPP that a potential civil action would need to surmount a high bar in order to prove that Duke Energy acted outside the scope of its federally regulated behavior.
Furthermore, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s acceptance of Duke Energy’s explanation about the incident would make it difficult for a civil action alleging negligence, according to Spence.
“You can't argue that it's a nuisance if it's a federally permitted and specified activity," he explained. "Now, if it's negligent, if they're not following their regulatory mandates, then perhaps you do have consequences.”
This article first appeared on Carolina Public Press and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.