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Thursday, March 28, 2024

Wrightsville Beach seeks FEMA funding to elevate two Harbor Island homes

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Following the success of Carolina Beach in using federal funding to flood-proof beach houses, Wrightsville Beach town officials are pursuing federal grants to elevate two houses on South Harbor Island that have filed repeated claims against flood insurance.

The program, run under the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and administered by the North Carolina Department of Emergency Management, will cover most or all of the costs to raise houses out of flooding danger. Houses will qualify for elevation if they have repeatedly filed claims against their flood insurance.

“Carolina Beach has had good success with the program and we’re hoping to have similar results here,” said Zach Steffey, a planner in the Wrightsville Beach planning and parks department.

So far, Carolina Beach has successfully elevated one home, a project that was recently completed after the grant was first received in 2010. With that success, Carolina Beach received grant funding for seven homes in 2013 and another six houses in the 2014 grant cycle. The engineering for elevating two of those homes has been completed, with construction planned for October.

Between the engineering, design and project management, a house elevation can cost as much as $150,000. In the case of the Wrightsville Beach properties, the owners will have to pay 10 percent of the costs. Town officials said that FEMA rules prevent them from releasing the names and addresses of the grant applicants.

In the case of some Carolina Beach properties that have filed severe repetitive losses, FEMA will cover the entire cost of elevating the house.

In some cases, Carolina Beach residents are seeking out the funding. In others, they decline to pursue the grants, said Jeremy Hardison, senior planner at the Carolina Beach parks and recreation department.

“Several people are asking how they can get their home on the list,” Hardison said. “It’s a great deal for them. People are lining up, hoping to get their home elevated under this grant.”

However, while Carolina Beach residents were looking for an opportunity to get into the program, a handful of Wrightsville Beach residents declined the opportunity.

“Some didn’t like the idea of elevating their house and weren’t interesting in participating,” Steffey said. Hardison added when a house is for sale, in foreclosure or is owned by several family members at once, it can be difficult to get owners to commit to the project.

FEMA identified 10 houses in Wrightsville Beach that could be eligible for the elevation grant, but the town only submitted two houses for the grant. The town identified three houses, but one was rejected by the state agency because it hadn’t made enough claims against flood insurance.

In 2014, Wrightsville Beach applied for funding to elevate five houses. While the application was approved, funds ran out before the grants could be distributed.

In Carolina Beach, the properties that received the elevation grants were either on the beach or on the second row of the strand, Hardison said. In the case of both Wrightsville Beach and Carolina Beach, many of the homes were built in the 1950s, 1960s or 1970s, before housing codes required structures on the beach be elevated.

The program is designed to prevent damage from flash flooding that hurricanes, tropical storms and other big storms can unleash on coastal communities. FEMA’s goal, Hardison said, is to prevent the torrent of claims.

“It’s about getting property and lives out of harm’s way,” he said. “FEMA will have all of these claims come in after a storm. This program is designed so that they don’t face all of these claims at once and it’s not so drastic.”

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