KELLY — Michelle Fisher rose from her seat on the front pew, faced an audience of well over 200 that packed the church in the heart of the flood-damaged community, and spoke from her heart.
She gathered her thoughts, expressed some concerns, and shared the wisdom of how one must be moved to uncomfortable before true comfort can be found. She challenged the elected county leaders present, and the representatives who came in place of U.S. Sen. Thom Tillis and U.S. Rep. David Rouzer.
And then she asked the multi-million dollar question about the failed dike in Kelly.
“Are we going to be safe if we come back here, or do we just need to leave and go someplace else?” Fisher said. “We want to come home. Help us come home.”
Rest assured, nobody in Kelly wants to make it a ghost town. Not by a long shot.
Fisher and other members of the community were strong Tuesday night. Bladen County commission chairman Charles Ray Peterson — with the challenge of so many entities tied to the situation and thus a plethora of schedules to match — brought to them the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers; the U.S. Department of Agriculture-Natural Resources Conversation Service; County Manager Greg Martin; Director Dean Morris of Bladen County Soil & Water Conservation among several department heads attending; Director Jason Turner of Pender County Soil & Water Conservation; as many Bladen County commissioners as could make it; and representation from the boards of the Lyons Swamp Drainage and Levee District, and the Kelly dike.
Fisher and resident after resident through a meeting of two-plus hours pleaded, even begged, with passion and concern for help. Collectively, they want the 14.5-mile earthen dam repaired, their homes and community protected, and the place they lovingly call home in the southeastern portion of the county to be able to withstand Mother Nature’s next call.
Mitch Hall, district chief of the Geotechnical and Dam Safety Section in the Corps’ Wilmington office, opened the session with a handout detailing — as best can be gathered through 108 years of records — a timeline of the implementation, authorizations and important changes with the dike. He was joined from the Wilmington Corps’ office by Dr. Gregory L. Williams, chief of the engineering branch, and Christine M. Brayman, the deputy district engineer for programs and project management.
On several occasions, residents questioned the role of the Corps. Williams assured he did not intend to give responses that sounded like the Corps had “washed their hands” of the situation, but the same variations of questions repeated and the answers remained consistent.
Some speakers focused on blame and past failures, others on solutions for the future. Decorum did prevail, notwithstanding some body punches to the commissioners and Corps.
The Corps operates a rehabilitation and inspection program. When a 9.6-mile addition was completed in 1962, the dike — known formally as the White Oak Dike Flood Control Project — was in that program and the Corps handed responsibilities as mandated by law to a sponsor, in this case the Lyons Swamp Drainage and Levee District.
Projects stay in the program and get periodic inspections by the Corps. Maintenance and repairs, if needed, are handled by the sponsor. As long as the project is active, the Corps is involved; if a project becomes inactive, it becomes the burden of the sponsor to bring it back.
Williams said that can mean even a section of the project, not necessarily the entire scope.
Residents agreed to be taxed to help the effort as sponsor, starting in the 1960s, but the tax eventually was stopped. The balance available is $35,207.03, distant from non-detailed estimated repair costs of $10 million to $20 million that Peterson said he has heard.
The project went inactive following a 2001 inspection. Hall’s information said it was due to “complete removal of the levee in sections (man-made breaches) for apparent timbering activity access, the presence of vegetation (mature trees) on the entire levee length, and erosion of the levee profile in numerous areas (resulting from possible vehicular access).”
A letter to the Lyons Swamp board was dated Oct. 18, 2001.
Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and levee issues around New Orleans brought about a federally-mandated inspection of all active and inactive systems. The Kelly dike, which runs 3.6 miles into Pender County, was inspected April 14-15, 2010. The report said deficiencies included large trees; man-made breaches from timbering; encroachments by small buildings, sheds and fences; six of nine culvert pipes couldn’t be located; culverts and headwalls were in deteriorating condition; there was erosion; and debris was within 15 feet of the levee throughout the project.
The Corps deemed the inactive status still intact, and met April 29, 2011, with Bladen County officials, dike commission representatives, and residents.
A letter Feb. 21, 2012, from the Corps gave the Lyons Swamp board its inspection report and ways to re-admit the project back into the program. The Corps’ detailed timeline was without indication the Lyons Swamp board has approached them in the seven years since.
Brandon Norris, the fire chief in Kelly, said he’s now been on the Lyons Swamp board for two weeks. Less than 10 members have ever been on it, he said, and those on it in 2001 are no longer living.
“There’s no excuse for this dam to be in the shape it is in,” resident Howard Bollinger said. “We pay taxes like everybody else. I am a flood victim, just like everybody else. When the other hurricane came, something should have been done then. It should have been done before then.
“Somebody let things go until we’re in the state we’re in today. We’re not asking for help, we’re begging for help.”
At Lock & Dam 1 on Sept. 21, Hurricane Florence pushed the Cape Fear River to 30.68 feet, a record that eclipsed Sept. 23, 1945 (29.80 feet) and Oct. 13, 2016 (28.58 feet). The latter was from Hurricane Matthew, the former from a tropical storm off the coast.
Florence came ashore as a category 1 hurricane near Wrightsville Beach on the morning of Sept. 14, then stalled for about three days between Wilmington and Myrtle Beach. It pulled moisture from the Atlantic Ocean and dumped it into southeastern North Carolina and northeastern South Carolina; Elizabethtown had more rain than any community in the Carolinas at 35.93 inches.
The Cape Fear flooded the following week, from counties more inland to the coast. Interstates 95 and 40 were shut down, and at one point Wilmington was essentially an island.
Howard Buie, a Natmore Road resident, shared the opinion of several speakers in asking for accountability.
“What’s it going to take — losing lives?” Buie said. “You look in the Midwest now. What we’ve got, and what we can do, it’s just letting people down in the community.
“What I’m seeing is a lot of people are not being held accountable for the positions they hold.”
Peterson was joined by county commissioners Dr. Ophelia Munn-Goins, Ray Britt and David Gooden. Munn-Goins and Britt chose to address the crowd.
Munn-Goins, the Kelly area’s representative, gave a nod of approval to Peterson for arranging the meeting, saying the nine-member board wanted to visit residents earlier but knew it was without answers.
She, Britt and Peterson all said the actions that will deliver answers on the future reside in federal places.
“What I am asking to the county commissioners and the legislators, if you look at Katrina in Lousiana, New Orleans was under water,” she said. “We looked on the TV and saw the folks were suffering. In order for them to get the levee fixed, the governor went to the president. The president inacted some type of restoration program to give to Louisiana. I think Bladen County commissioners, our state legislators, our governor — some of us need to go to our president and find the money to fix the levee.
“I represent this district. I’m asking you to call all nine of us. Our governor has to do something. He has more power than you as citizens, and us as commissioners.”
Britt echoed the sentiment, saying in his year as chairman he learned many things. One of them, he said, was that to get federal movement, a united effort from all the government officials touched — meaning municipal, county, state and federal along the tributaries and main flow of the Cape Fear River — is needed to apply pressure in Washington, D.C.
Going the route of a tax in Kelly, he said, was not the long-term answer if and when the dike is fixed or replaced.
“Even if we get it fixed, there’s not enough people in Kelly to keep that going,” Britt said. “You shouldn’t have to expect to do that. The money has to come from the federal government. If you don’t fix it today, it’s going to cost 10 times that in three years. We pay enough taxes.
“We need your help to shake them up.”
It was late in the program when Fisher stood once more. She said she still wanted the answer to her original question: Will it be safe to come back?
“We just don’t have that answer,” Peterson said.
Mitch Hall, district chief of the Geotechnical and Dam Safety Section in the Wilmington office of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, speaks with residents of Kelly on Tuesday about the nearby failed dike.
Dr. Ophelia Munn-Goins, a Bladen County commissioner representing the Kelly district, called on Gov. Roy Cooper to get federal help from President Donald Trump.
Dean Morris, director of Bladen County Soil & Water Conservation, looks over a handout from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers as Mitch Hall from the Corps goes through the information for Kelly residents.
Howard Bollinger, a resident in Kelly, said the community has been left behind, that something should have been done about the dike long before two hurricanes in 23 months caused catastrophic damage.
Brandon Norris, the fire chief in Kelly, explains some of the knowledge he has gained as a two-week member of the Lyons Swamp Drainage and Levee District board.
Commissioners Ray Britt (foreground left) and Charles Ray Peterson (background right) listen to the concerns of Kelly residents and share their knowledge following Tuesday night’s meeting at Centerville Baptist Church.
Sylvia Davis, who gave a passionate address at an October meeting with FEMA officials, rose to address the gathering that included representatives of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers on Tuesday night. Davis spoke from a position of optimism, recognizing the heartache she and others have endured and asking everyone to move forward to solutions.