BRUNSWICK COUNTY — The floods from last year’s Potential Tropical Cyclone 8 may have receded, but for Brunswick County the storm’s legacy endures as officials and residents confront the lasting lessons of infrastructure systems put to the test.
READ MORE: Who should have development approval power in Brunswick? Staff assessing commissioner authority
ALSO: ‘Something to put our teeth into’: Brunswick eyes ordinance overhaul to combat flood risks
The unnamed storm, also known as PTC8, hit Brunswick County with little warning in September last year, dumping 20 inches of rain in a 24-hour period. The surprise storm quickly became a worst-case scenario, overwhelming local infrastructure and causing widespread flooding. Earlier this week on Sept. 2, about a year after the storm, Brunswick County commissioners heard an after-action report detailing the county’s preparedness and response to PTC8 from Emergency Services Director David McIntire.
Included in the report were survey results from county residents. Sent via email and posted on the county webpage in October 2024, the survey received 1,470 responses over a two-week period. According to McIntire, the survey was a tool to help the county determine what worked, what didn’t, and what its next steps should be in its emergency response.
While a lack of shelters and frustration over urban planning and development were addressed in the survey, its main findings consisted of public confusion over who maintains roadway infrastructure, as 75% of residents did not know it wasn’t under the county’s purview.
“We just have to continue to educate people about who takes care of what, and that’s why we put it on the website, so people will learn,” Commissioner Pat Sykes told Port City Daily. “There were a lot of people that filled out the survey that have also now learned that the state takes care of the roads.”
Roadway management responsibility is split among the North Carolina Department of Transportation, local municipalities, and private entities like homeowners associations. NCDOT has jurisdiction over approximately 75% of the roads in the entire state and about 82% in the County.
Major state highways like U.S. 17, N.C. 211, and N.C. 133 all experienced significant flooding from PTC8 impeding travel. Approximately 27 roadways in the county were damaged by PTC8. Over the past year, NCDOT has been addressing damages, opening a bridge to replace a damaged culvert on East Moore Street in Southport in September, for example.
In response to the survey findings, McIntire recommended commissioners appeal to NCDOT to address infrastructure issues that contributed to the storm’s impact, such as replacing old or undersized culverts and cleaning drainage ditches on state-maintained roads. The report found that a lack of consistent maintenance was a major factor in localized flooding. This includes clearing out debris and overgrown vegetation blocking the natural flow of water.
In the survey, residents were also given the opportunity to comment on strengths and weaknesses of the county’s emergency response to PTC8. Strengths included communication and emergency services, while weaknesses pointed to urban planning and flood control.
Addressing commissioners during public comment at its Sept. 2 meeting, Southport resident Barbara Kuczynski-Gilbert warned about the dangers of overdevelopment.
“It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to realize that the status quo is unacceptable,” she said. “Flooding has already become the expectation after storms, due to clear-cutting and foolishly approved development. If we have a hurricane, it will be horrifyingly obvious that our established roads are not going to be able to safely evacuate everyone. Lives will be unnecessarily endangered and possibly lost.”
As a solution, Kuczynski-Gilbert suggested commissioners take development approval power away from the planning board, an idea recently suggested by Sykes.
After a discussion on the county’s unified development ordinance modernization project during a meeting on Aug. 4, Sykes motioned to explore the authority of the planning board. She requested staff bring back information outlining how the approval process would work if final authority for planned developments and major subdivisions was removed from the planning board. Staff will present their findings to the commissioners at a future meeting for review. The motion passed by a 3-1 vote with Chair Mike Forte against.
“They’ve had the authority for some time now, and I know why it was given to them,” Sykes said to PCD. “When it was given to them, we didn’t have much development. We didn’t have these issues like New Hanover County did — because they were growing continuously. So when we started growing, I didn’t even think anything of it until after the fact that we should maybe relook at that.”
The debate over development is just one of many issues the county is addressing in the aftermath of the storm. The after-action report also exposed other vulnerabilities, including a lack of emergency shelter space. McIntire explained the county currently only has enough dedicated shelter space to accommodate less than 1% of the county’s roughly 150,000 population.
A member of the county’s facilities committee, Sykes expressed a preference for moving away from using public schools as emergency shelters. She has been a vocal proponent for a new, dual-purpose facility that would serve as a recreation center during normal use and a hurricane-rated secure shelter for residents and supplies during an emergency.
The committee is considering several county parks as potential locations for the building, which could also be used as an additional polling location for elections. A decision has not yet been made on it.
Overall, the survey revealed the storm had a significant impact, with 90% of residents reporting some form of “life disruption.” Among them, 47% considered PTC8 to be among the top three worst storm events, and 35% suffered property damage from issues like flooding, roof damage, and yard washout.
One was Brian Baer — though he didn’t take the survey because he said he wasn’t aware of it when it was released last fall. Baer lived in the Stoney Creek neighborhood in Leland, where residents dealt with floodwaters rising to window height on some homes. At least 19 homes in the neighborhood were damaged and 27 residents were rescued by Leland and New Hanover County fire and rescue teams.
“I was sitting around with my kids and at about nine or 10 a.m., the neighbor came and said, ‘The water’s coming up into the house.’ It was in our front yard, and we didn’t know what we were gonna do,” Baer told Port City Daily. “At midnight, it started coming in the front door and I just sat at the top of the stairs, watching as it rose and rose until 3 a.m. when it was a few feet in our house.”
Baer purchased the home in 2019, moving to the area from the Midwest. He said he knew there was a potential for hurricanes to hit, but did not think an unnamed storm would cause as much damage as it did. He had not experienced severe flooding like this before moving in.
In the fallout, Baer said he had to leave his home behind and has since moved to Minnesota, as navigating temporary housing and financial burdens became a major challenge in the southeastern North Carolina region.
“I thought we were prepared in one sense, but then there were all these other after effects” Baer said.
When it came to storm readiness, the survey exposed a gap between how prepared residents felt and what they actually knew about emergency protocols. While 58% of residents said they felt they were prepared for the storm, many lacked critical information, with 73% of respondents unaware of whether they lived in an evacuation zone.
When seeking information, residents relied on a mix of traditional and modern sources, such as from local TV meteorologists (53%) and by utilizing the ReadyBrunswick alert system (51%), the top two sources.
The ReadyBrunswick system was launched by Brunswick County Emergency Services in 2023 to replace the CodeRED system to modernize emergency notifications. According to McIntire, nearly 50,000 residents out of more than 150,000 in the county have signed up with ReadyBrunswick. Survey results indicated 60% of respondents were registered.
However, Sykes explained despite being registered, many residents were still unaware of the system’s full capabilities. Users can receive targeted notifications based on geographical location, customizable alerts, and post-event information.
“All the time we’re trying to update people on what’s available for emergency situations, what they need to do continuously,” Sykes stated. “We’ve had enough hurricanes to know that we need to protect the public as much as we can.”
Solutions were floated at the Sept. 2 meeting on increasing resident participation in the ReadyBrunswick system, including launching an awareness campaign on the service.
McIntire presented recommendations for stormwater and community response improvements the county can complete in the short and long term.
The short-term recommendations include organizing a grant workshop to identify local, state, and Federal grant opportunities, acquire high-water rescue and low draft watercraft, and design and budget for storm-rated recreation center shelters. These are intended to be implemented within the next six to 18 months.
Looking ahead over the course of the next 18 to 36 months, McIntire suggested long term projects like completing an updated countywide floodplain study, the planning and construction of emergency shelters, and retrofitting senior centers with permanent generators.
Outside of these improvements, commissioners have also been discussing amending their flood ordinance to protect residents from future flood risk and establishing a stormwater utility to pay for infrastructure upgrades. After discussion about updating the ordinance at a meeting in July, commissioners requested county staff to return in August to present specific, codified ordinance updates, as well as a feasibility study into establishing a stormwater utility, although a presentation has yet to be given.
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