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Nearly one year on, Haywood strengthens flood response capabilities BY CORY VAILLANCOURT POLITICS E DITOR leven months to the day after Haywood County awoke to unprecedented flood damage along the Pigeon River resulting from torrential rains the day before, Emergency Services Officer Zack Koonce and Director Travis Donaldson told commissioners they’d secured grant funding to bolster reporting and warning systems. “Our mission at Emergency Services is to provide the citizens with preparedness, incident management and quality medical care,” Koonce said during a commission meeting on July 18. “During the heavy rainfall events, one preparedness tool that we lacked is early situational awareness about how fast rain is falling in relation to how fast the rivers were rising.” During an Oct. 18, 2021 meeting, commissioners approved a resolution to pursue grant funding for additional rain and river gauges that could communicate with early warning systems. That came after the remnants of Tropical Storm Fred lingered over Haywood County on the afternoon and evening of Tuesday, Aug. 17, 2021. Rains over the previous week-
July 20-26, 2022
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end saturated soils and by 1 p.m. that day, a gauge on the East Fork Pigeon River about a mile upriver from Jukebox Junction had begun to rise. By 6 p.m., the East Fork had set a new record, more than 3 feet above the previous 13-foot mark. Around that time, water had reached the mountain mill town of Canton, spilling into downtown homes and businesses. A flash flood warning was issued by the National Weather Service around 3 p.m. Shortly after 4 p.m., Haywood Emergency Services issued a flash flood alert, but for some upriver residents like Natasha Bright, it was already too late. Bright, her brother and their pets had been trapped for several hours, holding on for dear life atop a bunk bed in her floodedout house by the time the National Weather Service issued a flash flood emergency warning around 8:30 p.m. Waters receded below flood stage by 10 p.m. on the East Fork and around 12:30 a.m. in Canton, but as dawn broke on Wednesday residents were appalled by the damage they found.
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A map shows potential locations for new rain gauges (in red) and river gauges (purple) across southeastern portions of the county. Haywood County photo
Initial reports listed dozens of people as missing. Six people lost their lives, some swept away from a campground as a wall of water proceeded down the East Fork. Almost 600 homes were damaged, 160 were destroyed, landslides choked roads, cell towers and electricity failed, trucks and trail-
ers were tossed about like toys and thousands upon thousands of pounds of produce was stripped from stalks, cast downriver only to end up littering roads, bridges and anywhere else the water went. The $175,000 North Carolina Department of Public Safety
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