HAYWOOD COUNTY, N.C. — Cleanup continues in the mountains, one year after the remnants of Tropical Storm Fred hit North Carolina.
The Office of State Budget and Management, FEMA and state Department of Transportation say at least 700 bridges and roads were affected. It’s taken time for help to get to the area and that’s why one man jumped in to help his neighbors the best way he knew.
Marquis Ferguson owns WMF Land Services and just wrapped up another bridge construction project in Canton.
“This bridge is 52 feet across and it’s all concrete, so it’s pretty heavy. So we had to do a lot of work with this one,” Ferguson said. “We’ve been nonstop. We built 20 bridges in the last year and I don’t know how many houses we’ve torn down and dug footers for new ones that they are building.”
There’s more work where that came from, so he has to make sure his equipment is in top shape.
“I think we’ve got nine on the list right now that we are doing after this one. I don’t know how many more are coming through. They come through a couple two or three a week,” Ferguson said.
Last year’s deadly floods wiped out hundreds of homes, roads and bridges. The damage is still being repaired.
“The people that are around the head of Cruso up at the head of the Pigeon [River], a lot of them still don’t have access. They are wading the river, parking at neighbors' houses and still walking into their property,” Ferguson said.
As a business owner, he’s thankful for the work.
“It’s been pretty extensive through the whole deal. Just nonstop. We’ve worked seven days a week for a year,” Ferguson said.“It’s been pretty extensive through the whole deal. Just nonstop. We’ve worked seven days a week for a year,” Ferguson said.
But as someone who calls the mountains home, it’s hard for him to see his community hurting.
“We know a lot of the people around here. I was here in '04 when ... the last big flood happened. I was in high school, so I wasn’t really able to do much then. We had the equipment. We had the means to help, so we helped out,” Ferguson said.
When the storm was over, he wanted to help the best way he knew how.
“So we just went and picked up all of our equipment and called all of our crews in and we just rode around. We’d see people that couldn’t reach their homes. Their driveways were gone. We would stop and fix our driveway so that they could get access. We did that for two or three weeks,” Ferguson said.
Since then, he’s partnered with nonprofits and is contracted with the state to continue repair work. Now that it’s hurricane season, he’s worried this work could be for nothing if other problems aren’t fixed.
“If they don’t re-channel the river and get all the debris out of it, all of these bridges are going to be jammed full of all the debris, and it’s going to be a big waste of money if they don’t get it fixed soon,” Ferguson said.
“We are kind of in a forgotten place in western North Carolina. A lot of people don’t get the help that they need when they need it. FEMA was slow getting here," Ferguson said. "There’s a lot of people that don’t have access to their homes. They lost everything.”
In the meantime, he doesn’t see his business slowing down any time soon.
“The cleanup in Haywood County will probably be going on for years, two to five more years maybe, getting everyone back whole again,” Ferguson said.
OSBM says it's working with 11 counties that were directly affected. As of Aug. 26, OSBM had 700 total applications for housing, bridges and road repairs. Out of those, 433 are road and bridges with 193 completed so far.
The NCDOT says four state-owned bridges were lost during the storm, and since then two have been replaced while the other two are scheduled to be complete by next summer. To date, NCDOT has spent $11.5 million on repairs in Haywood County.
As of Aug. 25, FEMA’s public assistance program had 94 active projects for repairs to public roads and bridges damaged by Fred. More than $16.7 million from FEMA has been obligated for reimbursements on 46 public road and bridge projects.
