Woodfin manager reports FEMA denials, engineering delays in Helene recovery work

Town Manager Shannon told the Woodfin Town Council on Aug. 19 that recovery efforts from Tropical Storm Helene had mixed results: contractors finished work in the French Broad River that freed Silver Line Park for reopening, but engineering for roads and culverts is taking far longer than expected.

Shannon said the town had been told the engineering work now looks to be about 10 to 12 months from completion for the design needed to go to bid, a timeline that staff found “a shock” because it may complicate FEMA reimbursement deadlines. She said staff has asked the engineering firm to re‑examine the schedule to identify any possible acceleration.

Shannon said FEMA also denied seven road failure items in the town’s public assistance application because those failures were judged to be upslope slides and therefore categorized as erosion control rather than damage to public infrastructure. That distinction, she said, was why the work for those seven sites was not approved for FEMA repair dollars.

The town manager described complications with the state’s PPDR (private property debris removal) reassessment after the state moved applications into the SMART program. Of an initial list of 75 reassessed PPDR applications in Woodfin, 24% were deemed ineligible and “more than half of the remaining are eligible, but with conditions,” Shannon said. The most common reasons she cited for ineligibility were that trees were not in maintained areas or were not judged to threaten infrastructure, life or property.

Shannon also described a temporary pause on some waterway debris removal extensions while the state reviewed eligibility; the state later lifted the suspension but limited contractor removals to debris within 1,000 feet of “threatened infrastructure.” She said the state has indicated it is handling the questions about some river sections and extensions.

Shannon said one piece of good news is that Silver Line Park is now open after river contractors finished the portion of work in that area. She said the town had paused planned bidding for construction at Silver Line while staff, design professionals and FEMA representatives explore additional mitigation opportunities that might be folded into the project scope.

On hazardous tree removal, Shannon said work on Running Ridge — where large dangerous trees required closing a dead‑end road — was completed after the contractors notified affected property owners and isolated the road during the work.

Shannon gave an estimate of the town’s overall public assistance ask, saying “our total ask is somewhere around $3,100,000” while noting that individual project cost estimates vary and that an engineering cost estimate for one project was “just over a million” but the engineers expect the actual cost to be higher. She and council members repeatedly expressed concern about the risk of missing FEMA time limits and said staff is pursuing extensions and will push the engineering firm to review its timeline.

The town will continue to monitor eligibility questions and reimbursement schedules with state and federal partners and update council as the engineering and FEMA processes progress.