Bladen County residents are invited to attend a Resiliency and Redevelopment meeting on Tuesday, April 11, at 11 a.m. in the Commissioner’s Meeting Room in the Bladen County Courthouse in Elizabethtown.
Ryan Wiedenman, Senior Planner with the Atkins Group in Raleigh, said his company has a contract with the State of North Carolina to create a Resiliency and Redevelopment Plan. The plan will outline concerns and potential projects developed after meetings with officials in the 50 counties declared as disaster areas following Hurricane Matthew.
“We are working with communities to determine what needs they still have,” said Wiedenman.
He said State officials are hoping to use the Resilient Redevelopment Plan created from the information gathered to pursue more funding from Congress and/or the General Assembly, or other sources. The North Carolina Division of Emergency Management is managing the initiative.
Wiedenman said that in Bladen County, local officials expressed concerns with loss of power for an extended period of time following Hurricane Matthew especially at areas that are deemed critical areas such was EMS and Storm Shelters. He said officials would like to see some type of back-up power such as generators for these facilities.
Wiedenmen said there was a also extensive discussion in many locations regarding a lack of stream gauges or adequate methods of determining how much water upstream would be coming into a particular area. He said there are some stream gauges in place but there are not enough to go across the region to help people to understand the situation with the rising water. Wiedenman said this can be addressed through installing additional stream gauges. This would allow officials in Bladen to gauge how much water is upstream and coming towards the county.
Wiedenman said another issue which as discussed is the build up of debris in streams. The debris is building up and getting caught in the streams and this is causing flooding in some locations. There has been discussion on how to remedy that.
There was also a significant list of roads which were generated. “Those are going into our plan,” said Wiedenman. He said officials will be reviewing how to either elevate those bridges and roads or what methods could be applied to better protect those areas in the future.
The main reason for the plan is to pass it up to the State. Wiedenman said State officials can better utilize their resources to locate funding for the projects listed in the plan.
“One of the emphasis from the State was they wanted to locate more regional issues like stream gauges,” said Wiedenman.
Bladen County Manager Greg Martin said that the meeting with the Resiliency and Redevelopment Planner went well. He said the discussion included some of the problems encountered such as roads being washed out. Martin said, for example, when Owen Hill Road and Cromartie Road washed out, it took the water lines with it. He said to combat the problem in the future, the county reinstalled the water lines below the grade of the road.
Martin siad the original session with the planner was more of a brainstorming session. This meeting will be a final meeting for this project. Wiedenman said the public is invited to attend the meeting on Tuesday, April 11, at 11 a.m.
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