Kinston, North Carolina Sign to discourage illegal dumping in the Kinston, NC buyout area. Photo by author. Background Kinston (pop. 22,000) is located along the Neuse River in Lenoir County, North Carolina (Figure 2). Tobacco and cotton buoyed the economy of Kinston for most of its history. The decline of those industries, however, has led to tough economic times: job losses and a struggling downtown. Two recent bright spots have been the opening of Chef and the Farmer--a restaurant profiled on “A Chef’s Life” on PBS--and the opening of Mother Earth Brewery. Over the past few years, the brewery owner has refurbished over a dozen run-down homes near downtown, bringing new life to a neglected corner of the city (Figure 1). Figure 1: Recently renovated homes in Kinston Kinston lags behind the state as a whole in household income, poverty rate and educational attainment (Table 1). The median household income of the city is only 64% of the median household income for North Carolina as a whole, while the poverty rate for the city (32.8%) is well above that for the state (17.2%). Educational attainment is low among residents of Kinston, especially for bachelor’s degrees. The percentage of Kinston residents with a bachelor’s degree is about one-half of the state average. In addition, the city’s population is aging, with a median age almost 5 years greater than that of the state as whole. African Americans comprise nearly 70% of Kinston’s population. Figure 1: Kinston Location History of Flooding Kinston’s experience with hazard mitigation buyouts began with Hurricane Fran--a category 3 storm with sustained winds of up to 115 mph when it made landfall in southeastern North Carolina on September 6, 1996. Although the storm degraded rapidly as it passed over the Piedmont region of North Carolina, Fran dropped as much as 10 inches of rain in areas west of Kinston. Much of this rain fell in the basin of the Neuse River, which runs through the city. The heavy rains of Hurricane Fran led to flooding along the southern portion of Kinston and damaged or destroyed hundreds of homes. Flooding also inundated the Peachtree Wastewater 2 Treatment plan, releasing raw and partially treated sewage into the Neuse River. Several junkyards were also flooded, spilling oil, gas and other toxic chemicals into the river. Table 1: Kinston Demographics Kinston North Carolina Population (2010) 21,677 9,535,483 Median age 41.2 37.4 Housing units 10,862 4,327,528 Owner occupied 44.0 65.8 Black (%) 68.8 22.1 White (%) 28.7 68.5 Hispanic or Latino (%) 2.4 8.4 High school degree (%) 79.9 85.4 Bachelor’s degree (%) 15 27.8 Median household income $28,608 $46,693 Poverty rate (%) 32.8 17.2 Source: US Census, 2010 and American Community Survey 2014 In response to the flooding, the city and Lenoir County collaborated to apply for a federal buyout. By June of 1997, the city and county had acquired 188 properties with funding from FEMA’s Hazard Mitigation Grant Program (HMGP). The buyout program completed in 1997 was successful in removing homes from areas at risk of future flooding. Nevertheless, the buyout created a short-term housing shortage: the local housing market couldn’t accommodate the scores of families seeking new homes. In December of 1998, the City of Kinston hosted a housing summit to investigate the need for additional housing stock. City officials, non-profit organizations, and local stakeholders drafted a plan to provide financial, administrative, and technical assistance to residents, investors, and developers. Less than 10 months later, Kinston was hit by another major storm: Hurricane Floyd. Figure 3: Kinston Flooding during Hurricane Floyd 3 Hurricane Floyd struck the North Carolina coast on September 16, 1999 in almost the exact same spot as Hurricane Fran. Though slightly weaker than Fran, Floyd was stalled over eastern North Carolina by a cold front approaching from the north. Rainfall from Hurricane Floyd exceeded 15 inches over two days. To make matters worse, Hurricane Dennis had hit Eastern North Carolina only 10 days prior and left 10 inches of rain in its wake. Swollen from the two storms, the Neuse River overflowed its banks once again. Over 1,000 homes and more than 300 businesses were flooded. The flooding disproportionately affected low-income, African American residents. One of the communities hit the hardest was Lincoln City--an area south of downtown Kinston and north of the Neuse River. Lincoln City is a neighborhood straddling the east-west corridor of Lincoln Street between South Queen Street (Business 258) and a stream that empties into the Neuse River called Adkin Branch. This community was traditionally the home of poor, African Americans, many of whom relied on Section 8 vouchers to pay for their housing. Very few properties in the neighborhood had flood insurance of any kind. The Buyout Kinston and Lenoir County were devastated by flooding from Hurricane Floyd, but their public officials had learned a lot from the recovery effort after Hurricane Fran. Having barely finished disbursing HMGP funds and demolishing structures on acquired parcels after Fran, Kinston was better prepared to run a buyout program after Hurricane Floyd. Several city officials indicated in interviews that they drew upon the experience they gained from Hurricane Fran to help them navigate the buyout process in the aftermath of Hurricane Floyd. In addition, the members of the city staff reached out to officials from Grand Forks, North Dakota—which suffered severe flooding in 1997—for guidance on the recovery effort and buyout process. According to Tommy Lee, former director of both the Planning and Inspections Departments in Kinston, the city wasted no time in starting the process of requesting federal assistance. One of the city’s major concerns was the possibility of residents moving back into homes that were severely damaged by flooding before the city could implement a buyout. If residents returned to occupy their homes, they would present a legal and political challenge to recovery efforts that were essential to protecting the community’s long-term health and safety. The recovery effort in Kinston was jointly managed by the City and Lenoir County. The personnel involved came largely from city staff and included City Manager Ralph Clark, Planning 4 Director Bill Clark, City Planner Jackie Eubanks, Director of Inspections Tommy Lee, and City Attorney Vernon “Poo” Rochelle. With the exception of Ralph Clark, who had been on staff for less than a month when the flooding occurred, every member of this group had directly participated in the buyout program that took place after Hurricane Fran. With that experience fresh on their minds, and the availability of newly developed GIS resources, the team was better prepared to undertake the FEMA/HMGP application process. Recent experience notwithstanding, the federal application process was cumbersome and lengthy. For Kinston, eight years elapsed between the date of the flood and the approval of the last HMGP grant. In total, the city purchased over 1000 homes during that period. It also purchased over 100 vacant lots, using funds from the State’s Clean Water Management Trust Fund, and purchased and removed several junkyards from the floodplain. In line with a longstanding precedent, the State of North Carolina allocated funds to fulfill the 25% funding match required by FEMA to award a grant. The legislation enabling this expenditure, the Hurricane Floyd Recovery Act of 1999, also created a reserve fund to provide housing assistance, economic recovery aid, and other support to local governments. The act appropriated over $300 million for these purposes. Kinston benefited not only from the opening of state coffers, but also from the direct political power of elected officials in state and national offices. North Carolina Governor Jim Hunt acted quickly to the disaster: in addition to approving state funding, the Governor advocated for the remediation of brownfields in Lenoir County using the NC Clean Water Management Trust Fund. Figure 4: Kinston Buyout Area in March 2016 Former Senator John Edwards played an active role as well. FEMA Director James Lee Witt publicly committed to using federal dollars to rehabilitate a Kinston wastewater treatment plant that damaged during the flood. When Director Witt later rescinded that promise, Senator Edwards pressured him to follow through on it. Repair of the plant was eventually funded as Director Witt promised and today provides reclaimed water for irrigation and industrial use. U.S. Representative Eva Clayton advocated for expediting the availability of federal moneys on behalf of the 1st congressional district of North Carolina. 5 At the ground level, Kinston officials found that most homeowners were eager to participate in the buyout, particularly after experiencing the one-two punch of Hurricanes Fran and Floyd, but also because many of their homes had been condemned. Many of these families wished to sell their homes before 1999 but found it difficult due to a slumping local economy and a weak demand for homes vulnerable to flooding. One of the challenges of the buyout program was that homes outside the floodplain generally were more expensive than those located within the floodplain. Thus, buyout participants would have a hard time affording a replacement house. To address this issue, the state created the State Acquisition Relocation Fund or SARF to cover the difference between what buyout participants were offered for their house and the cost of a new home. These gap funds helped make the buyout feasible for many homeowners and greatly increased the participation rate. SARF was also used to help renters relocate from flood-damaged homes.