News

City leaders report on historic flood

By Bill Moss, Published: October 3, 2024

On the agenda it was called, simply enough, Tropical Storm Helene Update, under City Manager Report.

No simple update, though. It's the biggest disaster update since 1916. Assistant City Manager Brian Pahle kicked things off with a slide show called "What's Happened. Our Current Position. What's Next? Silver Linings."

Responding to the worst natural disaster before Helene, in July 1916, the City Council authorized a water interconnect with Henderson County, took out a $10,000 loan to begin street and water and sewer line repairs, minutes showed.

A second epic flood returned last Thursday, 108 years later.

An image from a video camera on a flagpole at Honor Air Park showed art m10:35 a.m. showed 7 feet of water on South Main. Other photos showed boat rescues, fllodwaters at the city operations center, police patrols and more. Public works has been deployed to clear trees from roads, locating sites for debris removal.

"Water is so critical and we're so lucky to have the staff and infrastructure we have," Pahle said. Seventy percent of city water users have fresh water without a boil order. Technology workarounds included COWs (cellular on wheels) and Starlinks. The city's regular service, ERC, is now up and running. "Everyone has jumped in, leaned on their training, leaned on their professionalism" to provide food, fuel, lodging, therapy and peer support.

City Manager John Connet thanked "this board's and past boards' wilingness to invest in us. You invested in us, you invested in facilities. Just 2 wwek ago we uncoupled the hose of Fire Station 1. That facility has served us well and it's ony 2 weeks old."

What's next? The city had been somewhat on its own for the first seven days; now the community will be moving into FEMA world, where a massive federal bureaucracy begins to provide aid — and demand a lot of paperwork and impose thousands of rules.

"We've been preparing for this disaster for almost a hundred years and we've really been focused on it for the last 10 years," Connet said. Downtown, for instance, "became a safe haven" because it had power outlets in the brick planters, a parking deck for shelter and public rest rooms. "Your No. 1 investment has been our staff. You see what they do here. They have strong professional networks across the state and nation. They've been able to pick up the phone and call their peers and friends and say, 'How do we do this? or, Can you come help us?'"

Silver lining? Free minigolf at the city's new course at Five Points Saturday and Sunday.

"I've lived a long time and I never had the opportunity to make an investment in anything that's paid back like this has," Council member Jeff Miller said of the personnel and capital.

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To find out more about how to donate to hurricane relief, send an email Helene-Donations@hcem.org.