FEMA abandons residents of devastated North Carolina town due to ‘Road Closed’ sign

BATCABE, N.C. — Residents of a small North Carolina town nearly completely destroyed by Hurricane Helen are left to fend for themselves after FEMA told them “Road Closed” signs were an insurmountable obstacle. is protecting.

“FEMA called and said they wanted to inspect the house, but they called back and said they couldn’t drive around a ‘Road Closed’ sign. They weren’t allowed. ” local Chelsea Atkins, 38, told the Post.

“You can certainly drive, but it’s not that bad. You just have to drive around the ‘closed signs’. I explained that to them and they said you can’t do that,” she said. and described a frustrating exchange with a embattled federal agency.

Left to fend for themselves, Batcave residents banded together, cleared roads, and began the arduous process of cleanup and restoration. Residents told the Post they don’t need FEMA right now and don’t even want disaster relief agencies coming at this point.

The sick and elderly residents of the Batcave were airlifted to safety a week ago, leaving those left behind with virtually no government agency except for a small number of Louisiana State Police troopers “keeping an eye on everything.” Local residents say they have not seen any. I’ve done almost nothing.

The intermittent sound of military Chinook helicopters soaring over town is a reminder that help is available to people in devastated areas of the state’s west, not just Bat Cave.

Here, apple orchard workers armed with chainsaws worked with local grading contractors to clear roads well before the Department of Transportation arrived to help, but when they finally arrived. I was grateful.

The few surviving local residents are scavenging for construction materials to shore up their homes on the banks of the Broad River. The Broad River is now 10 times wider than it was before Helen began her path of destruction.

Atkins, a health researcher from Buffalo, New York, said she thought she was going to die when the storm hit the bat cave. She and her husband, Andy Wells, 40, joined neighbors Kendall and her fiancé, Curtis McCart, 58, on Friday morning at the front door of a small white brick post office across Highway 64. evacuated to.

“It was wild,” Atkins said.

As floodwaters began to swamp makeshift shelters, the refugees then headed for empty houses on higher ground, trudging up the mountain slopes in a desperate bid for safety. The first house they tried had a gas leak, and the second house the ground under the porch slipped out from underneath.

“At first I thought I would be fine if I waited out the storm for a few hours at the post office and then walked home. As time passed, the situation became more and more dire,” she said. said.

“The post office was flooded and that’s when we realized the damage was really hitting the fans.”

Atkins admitted that although he is not normally afraid of the weather, he was genuinely fearing for his life at this point.

“I’m naturally very calm and can deal with a lot of things, but I looked at my neighbor and asked, ‘Are we going to die?’ As if in a real conversation, I said, ‘Are we going to die?’ Are you going to die?’

The next hut the group tried had a screened-in porch and provided the shelter they were looking for.

Atkins said FEMA called her to arrange for an inspection of her home on the Broad River, which had been made uninhabitable by the storm, but they never showed up because the roads were closed. He said it was the exact same road he passed on his way to the cave.

The road is difficult, but it is possible to proceed. Downed power lines are scattered and entire sections have collapsed. A section of Highway 9 is completely washed away, and traffic has to go through a giant chasm through someone’s yard.

“FEMA is not here,” Atkins said.

“DOT is here and random fire departments like Kannapolis are here as well. They’ve been great. But there’s no one bringing in supplies other than civilians,” she said.

Atkins said there are concerns that FEMA, at this late stage in the recovery effort, would do more harm than good if it showed up at this stage.

“It’s been a civilian-led operation from day one. You can’t ask the authorities for help. They’ll say you need to leave,” she said, calling Bat Cave a place where “a redneck could live.” He said that.

“We’re taking care of it. Leave it to us, we’ll take care of it.”

Her neighbor, former Los Angeles Fire Department chief and EMT Curtis McCartt, estimates more than a dozen homes along winding Highway 64 were washed away in the storm.

The town itself was torn in half, and the 15-foot bridge connecting the halves of the town was destroyed. Currently, this gap is covered with sheet metal, but it cannot support the weight of cars, so residents are forced to cross the gap exclusively on foot.

Before the hurricane, the Broad River in front of McCartt’s house was only 10 yards wide. Today, it’s a 100-yard-wide riverbed littered with trees, concrete slabs, twisted tin, and power lines with transformers still attached.

“There was a huge 60-foot-tall plane tree in front of our house, probably over 100 years old, but it’s all gone. Considering their age, the 1916 flood “I must have been here during that time. I heard the flood was 27 to 30 feet. This flood must have been worse, I heard this one was 40 feet.”

McCartt, who had never seen anyone wearing a FEMA uniform in the bat cave, said Atkins was working to shore up the third floor of his home to prevent the roof from collapsing in the attic. As well as worrying about what would happen if they showed up.

“At this point, I don’t care if FEMA comes,” he said. “I wonder if Big Brother will allow us to rebuild.”

The unincorporated community of just 180 residents is located about 40 miles southeast of Asheville.

Hurricane Helen has killed at least 232 people in the Southeast, with hundreds still reported missing.

The Category 4 storm was the deadliest hurricane in the continental United States since Katrina hit the Gulf Coast in 2005.