ELIZABETHTOWN — The Elizabethtown Cemetery has a chance to be repaired by the end of the year.
The town has scheduled an information session June 16. Town Manager Eddie Madden met with officials involved in the project last week, and said they are close to wrapping up the details.
“We are scheduling a community information meeting to allow people to drop by the Cape Fear Farmer’s Market and have a chance to review the plans and the construction schedule,” Madden said. “With the limits caused by COVID-19 we are scheduling this as a drop-in event, with hours of noon to 6:30 p.m. This will allow everyone to come as they are able and follow social distancing guidelines.”
Visitors will be able to spread out. Madden said in this format, no matter what phase North Carolina is in to reopen as set forth by Gov. Roy Cooper, there is flexibility with restrictions.
“We have not seen the phase two requirements, so we don’t know if we will be allowed to have a larger group or how that may go,” Madden said.
The first phase began May 8.
Madden said a sheet pile wall will extend 50 feet under the ground in depth.
“The sheet pile wall will not be noticeable,” he said. “There won’t be anything on the surface that we have to worry about concealing. That will be really good, and we are pleased to find that the wall will not be visible.”
Madden said the town has high hopes that this will be quickly wrapped up.
The cemetery is high on a hill overlooking the Cape Fear River. It runs along East Queen Street to North Lower Street, where the back of the parcel for Four County Electric Corp. has a fence.
At some points, the difference in ground level along the highest boundary of a ridge that formed was greater than stair steps. Some grave markers were displaced. FEMA said more than 2,800 burial sites were shifted by ground saturation, or about half of the cemetery grounds.
Funding for more than $5.2 million in repairs was announced in March by the Federal Emergency Management Agency on behalf of the state of North Carolina. The Elizabethtown Town Council approved a contract with W.K. Dickson and Associates in the fall of 2019 for engineering and design services prior to receiving the grant award.
FEMA money, in general, is used to return things to pre-storm conditions. In the case of the cemetery, such a move would have risks, including what happens should the river flood so significantly again.
FEMA’s Public Assistance program is a cost-sharing model, with FEMA reimbursing 75 percent of eligible costs and the remaining 25 percent covered by the state. The federal share is paid directly to the state to disburse to agencies, local governments and certain private nonprofit organizations that incurred costs.
FEMA’s share for the project is more than $3.9 million, and the state’s share is more than $1.3 million.
The National Hurricane Center, in its report on the hurricane, said the storm was a $24 billion catastrophe, $22 billion of which was in North Carolina. It said in Elizabethtown, the 35.93 inches of rainfall shattered the previous state record of 24.06 inches in Southport during Hurricane Floyd in 1999.
The report, which uses different methodology than the state records, said 15 people died in North Carolina. There were no deaths in Bladen County. Florence was “a long-lived, category 4 hurricane” named on Aug. 31 and lasting until Sept. 17. It made landfall near Wrightsville Beach on the morning of Sept. 14 as a Category 1 storm.
The Cape Fear River rose to its second-highest level, its worst since 1945.
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The cemetery borders the Cape Fear River. Significant drops in ground level stretch better than 50 yards in various places.