WINNABOW, N.C. (WECT) – It’s going to be six years since Hurricane Florence hit, and Crystle Silvey says bad memories are coming back to her.
Sivey said, “We lost everything we had.” “We didn’t even have any clothes on.”
Florence brought heavy floods to the area, and Silvey’s house in Winnabow was one of many that was damaged. After the water got several feet high in her house, the Coast Guard finally came and saved her and her family. But their worst fear had just begun.
Slvey said, “Everything was broken, and we had to throw everything we own on the side of the road in front of the house.” “The frame was pretty much the only thing left to do on this house.”
That was the start of their rebuilding process. Volunteers from a nearby Methodist church and her husband worked long hours to get back what they had lost. She thinks that the stress of this time may have been what killed her husband so soon after, just one year later.
Simvey said, “I do think that it put a lot of stress on him because we had to start over.”
Even though Silvey’s house has been finished for a few years, she says she is still fixed some of the damage from the storm.
“The floor started to come apart, and even though the sheetrock in our bathrooms is new, there is mold there now. Also, there is a leak in my son’s closet in the light fixture.” In other words, it’s not safe right now.
Silvey says that a lot of her friends are going through the same thing.
The trouble isn’t just in the Winnabow area, though. Andy Jones, CEO of WARM NC, helps low-income families in need every day fix up their homes after big storms.
“Even after six years, it’s still surprising that people ask us to help them with damage from Hurricane Florence,” Jones said.
He said that since the hurricane in 2018, they’ve helped 350 homes who had damage. However, 35 homeowners are still on their waiting list. Jones says that all of the people on the waitlist have since called out, years after the storm. They haven’t heard from anyone who asked for help in 2018 yet, he says.
“Even three years after the fact, we started getting a new wave of applications, and we thought, ‘Oh, these are the ones who thought they could do it all on their own,'” Jones explained. “They’ve used up all of their options.” We are now being reached by them. Cases, situations, and big jobs that are still out there that are really hard are the ones that are left.
Rebuild NC, a statewide organization, says they have a lot more cases to handle. Most of their cases are in the southeast of North Carolina.
“About 4,300 people from Matthew and Florence have applied,” said Laura Hogshead, director of Rebuild NC. “And we keep those families together with Matthew and Florence because so many of our applicants for Florence were affected by Matthew.” We have turned 2,623 of them into finished homes, and the rest are either with a builder or not being built at this time. Only a few of our families are not yet with the main contractor.
As of September 2024, 727 projects are being built with help from Rebuild NC.
It took longer than expected to get the money they needed, which is why Hogshead says they are still working on projects related to Florence.
“Even though the event happened in 2018, we didn’t get the money until 2020.” We are the ones who come in and help any of our families who couldn’t fully heal with other Federal or state funding streams. That’s why it takes so long: this is supposed to be the last funding opportunity.
She said it was a lot like WARM NC in that many people came to them for help years after the fact.
Hogshead said, “We stopped taking applications in April of last year.” “So April 2023, but people still applied right up until the last day.” On the very last day, we had a lot of people apply. There were people who came in in June 2020 and April 2023. What we’re seeing now are mostly families who either applied later or had big problems with their application that we’re helping them get past.
When it comes to time, Jones said it was normal for a lot of people to still need help after six years.
“FEMA says it can take anywhere from five to eight years to get back on your feet after those kinds of storms,” Jones said. When we heard that number for the first time right after Hurricane Florence, I thought, ‘No way, we’ll be able to really stop this in its tracks in five years,’ but that’s not the case. So, you know, six and a half years later, we’re really just now in that sweet spot.
In some ways, Hogshead said, it seems strange to think about how long ago Hurricane Florence was.
“It seems like a very long time ago and a blink of an eye since Hurricane Florence,” Hogshead said. “But we work every day to make sure that people can get home because if you’re affected by a hurricane, it’s not over until you’re in your new home.”
Repairing or building a new home is important work that is often needed to keep the homeowner and their family healthy and safe. But Silvey misses her first family house.
Sivey said, “It’s hard to tell a story when one person is missing.” “That’s my husband.” I liked my old house a lot. It’s better than this one, in my opinion.