LAKE LURE, North Carolina, June 17 (Reuters) – When Hurricane Helene’s flood waters slammed into Lake Lure’s century-old dam last September, gouging a massive scar into one embankment and cascading five months’ worth of rain down its sides, town commissioner Dave DiOrio worried it might fail.
Emergency sirens blared. “DAM FAILURE IMMINENT!” the National Weather Service warned in a social media post, urging 3,000 residents living downstream to seek higher ground.
“When it starts breaking out on the sides, I mean who knows,” said DiOrio, a former Navy captain with an engineering background.
In the end, the dam held. But the disaster galvanized the North Carolina resort town’s efforts to seek federal funding for an ambitious rebuilding plan – including $200 million for the dam alone.
The initial response from the Federal Emergency Management Agency seemed encouraging. Deanne Criswell, who then headed the agency under President Joe Biden, told Lake Lure leaders that FEMA wanted to invest in projects that would harden areas against future disasters.
Now President Donald Trump’s plans to shrink or even abolish FEMA, and push some of the costs of responding to disasters onto the states, have injected uncertainty into Lake Lure’s recovery, town officials said.
Since taking office, Trump has declined funding requests from six disaster-hit states for projects to guard against future storms, a category of aid known as hazard mitigation. All of the states are run by Republican governors.
Lake Lure officials are centering their plan to rebuild in a more resilient way around a new dam on the 720-acre reservoir. The town, with a year-round population of just 1,400, can draw 10,000 visitors a day during the summer, when people come to relax on Lake Lure’s beaches, water ski or hike local trails.
While FEMA doesn’t usually build new dams, DiOrio said the town’s leaders were thinking big because of the proactive stance on hazard mitigation projects under Biden. He worries that FEMA under Trump is retreating from such investments.
“I think what we’re seeing is a de-scoping of FEMA,” DiOrio said. “If it does, that leaves us in limbo land.”
Helene caused an estimated $60 billion in damage in western North Carolina and killed 250 people across seven states, making it the deadliest hurricane to hit the U.S. mainland since Katrina in 2005 left nearly 1,400 dead.
As it does sometimes with major disasters, FEMA covered 100% of the costs for debris removal and emergency protective measures for six months after Helene. That dropped to 90% in late March, but is still above the usual 75%, a FEMA spokesperson said in response to questions.
