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Town outlines recovery office and pursues multiple hazard‑mitigation and resiliency grants
Summary
Assistant Town Manager Jessica Trotter described creating an Office of Recovery & Resiliency, pursuing numerous hazard‑mitigation and infrastructure grants (including Hazard Mitigation and State Revolving funds), and partnering with Western Carolina University on inundation mapping to guide long‑term recovery from Hurricane Helene.
Assistant Town Manager Jessica Trotter told the council the town has shifted from immediate storm response to a longer‑term recovery and resilience strategy and proposed creating an Office of Recovery & Resiliency to coordinate mitigation, mapping, funding and policy updates.
Trotter said the town submitted nine letters of interest for Hazard Mitigation Grant Program funds and has been asked to move forward on seven; she said the state is the applicant and that the program is highly competitive. She outlined specific funding efforts on the table: a $1,000,000 application to the North Carolina Department of Commerce for downtown stormwater inlet improvements, applications to a Disaster Mitigation Fund created in HB 10 20 (transcript reference) for infrastructure hardening, and pursuit of State Revolving Fund assistance that could include approximately $5,000,000 in principal forgiveness for water‑system projects or wells.
Trotter said technical assistance tied to a $3,000,000 DEQ grant will fund an AIA (assessment inventory) of water infrastructure and that Western Carolina University's geology department will prepare an inundation map for the town at no cost (a service Trotter valued at about $200,000) to inform evacuation planning, regulatory choices and risk communication.
She also described efforts to pair grant and loan applications to achieve redundancy (for example, waterline relocations that may be eligible under both hazard mitigation and SRF programs) and noted the state will cover the standard 25% match on certain Hazard Mitigation grants so the town has no local match requirement for those applications. Trotter asked council to authorize staff to pursue grant and loan applications and to competitively select professional services to help prepare applications; council approved related consent agenda items and follow‑up contract selections.
Trotter said staff will return with RFQs and detailed project scopes and that some projects will require engineering assessments and environmental reviews.
