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00:21The full extent of Holine's destructive toll just now coming into focus.
00:26All of a sudden we get a notice that says the dam is at critical level.
00:30Get to high ground immediately.
00:32The water started gushing down the side of the mountain.
00:35He was found right along the bank.
00:38This is not how anybody deserved to go.
00:41The whole community is just destroyed. Everything's gone.
00:45Drawing on a decade of reporting on disasters and their aftermath.
00:49This is Laura Sullivan.
00:51NPR correspondent Laura Sullivan investigates America's continuing vulnerability to climate change related storms.
00:58You've had several major storms in the past couple decades.
01:02What makes you think a storm like this won't happen again?
01:05There's no guarantee a storm like this won't happen again, but I think everything is a risk.
01:10The cost to society, to our country, for these storm events is astronomical.
01:15Now on Frontline, Hurricane Helene's deadly warning.
01:19This is the result of destroying us.
01:20The weather is important.
01:21If it's mostly
01:24baixo, please external.
01:27If there's no danger in The Tesla Sistema,,
01:32or the state of the country,
01:33the small town of one,
01:34the central and central reversed.
01:39It's just lies in face.
01:44All of us have come down again.
01:47Rommelos,
01:48There's an old box here.
02:18It's like the apocalypse.
02:31We came to North Carolina five days after Hurricane Helene tore through the region.
02:39More than 100,000 were still without power.
02:44Tens of thousands had no water.
02:46And the death toll was rising.
02:51The River Link Bridge had become a gathering point for local residents.
03:01Did you see it when the water was here?
03:04It was insane.
03:05Like, I've never, it was all the way up here.
03:07So these buildings, could you see them?
03:10The tops of, like, basically the first level was underwater.
03:16We always thought that because we was in the mountains, that it wouldn't, it wouldn't happen.
03:24It's unexplainable, it really is.
03:26We watched whole houses just crumble and go down the river, trucks turn end over end.
03:31Nothing, I've never seen nothing like it.
03:32Phone service had been down for days, making it hard for families and friends to find one another.
03:48Hundreds of people were still unaccounted for.
03:50Hi, good, how are you?
03:53Is this the list?
03:55No, this isn't a complete list.
03:56This is just the ones that we've had people come through.
03:59And if they're safe, like, this person is safe?
04:01The area says that they've been found, yes.
04:03And then you still have some missing people.
04:06Yes.
04:07There's probably more than that, but that's the ones we have in the most part.
04:11Zubila Shafiq's husband, Omar, was among the missing.
04:25They'd recently separated, and he'd moved to this apartment complex close to a river that had flooded.
04:31I saw some people walking by, and they're like, I said, I'm looking for somebody, I'm looking for somebody, I'm looking for Omar.
04:37She said, um, I tried to save him.
04:42I'm so sorry, I tried to save him.
04:45And then she explained to me, she said, I saw him, and he was up there, he was panicking.
04:56A neighbor captured what happened on her cell phone.
05:07I'm sorry, I just, I don't understand what these poor people had to go through to imagine what it's like to be seeing all this water.
05:15Everything is leaving, and the fear he must have had.
05:22Omar's building was carried down the river.
05:29Every night I think about it, the fear.
05:33It's unimaginable, it's unimaginable to think, to see this rushing wave of water, and he can't swim.
05:51And nobody, even if you can swim, there's no way.
05:54And I just, I don't understand, like, how that must have felt for him, and I can't, like, I think about it every night.
06:02The fear he must have had.
06:05How scared he must have been.
06:13People from around the region had come to offer help.
06:17We had a bunch of water and granola bars in our bags, and just to offer to people, and...
06:22Allegra West had narrowly escaped a landslide in the hills outside of town.
06:28It was incredibly nerve-wracking, yeah.
06:31There's, uh, there's no water on that property.
06:33We're on the side of the mountain there, and...
06:35Oh, my God.
06:36Yeah, at about 8 a.m., I looked out my window, and the water started gushing down the side of the mountain.
06:42She filmed out the window as the water surged down the hillside.
06:47Her neighbor's house was knocked over.
06:53What about the people?
06:55The gentleman was, was in a tree.
06:57Oh, no.
06:58Clearly had a broken back and other things.
07:01He was still alive.
07:02He was still alive.
07:03What did you do?
07:04Well, we held his hand and, you know, prayed with him and spoke to him and took down any notes of what he wanted to say.
07:12So he died?
07:14Yes.
07:15We spent the rest of the day searching the rubble for his wife.
07:19They found her at about 12.30 here in the rubble, and they're together now, and, yeah.
07:29We were hearing that the worst damage was in towns like hers, miles outside of Asheville, in the Blue Ridge Mountains.
07:36It was difficult to get around.
07:41Many roads were impassable and buried under mud, cutting off survivors from critical aid.
07:47How many people are missing at this point, do you think?
07:50Do you know how many were on that missing persons board?
07:53I do not.
07:53We're getting varying ranges of numbers, anywhere between, you know, under 100 to upwards of 700.
08:02Oh, yeah.
08:02We managed to get to the town of Swananoa, to the same hillside where Allegra's neighbors were killed.
08:15All that water came down that hill, hit that house, shoved it over there, and then all the rest of it came and hit this house, drug it down there, and that don't look like a house, but it is.
08:35Steve Gibson was still cleaning up.
08:37Do you feel like it was a safe place to live?
08:39Oh, yeah.
08:40Yeah.
08:41Yeah, because when we heard about the flood, we go, well, we're up here on the hill, ain't nothing going to happen to us.
08:47Then all this happened.
08:48Yes.
08:48And it's like, we didn't know there was a landslide.
08:51Right, that it would take half the mountain down.
08:54Yeah.
08:54The rains that triggered the landslide caused the Swananoa River to overflow its banks by more than 26 feet.
09:09Ben Larrabee's whole neighborhood was inundated.
09:12All of a sudden, we get a notice that says the dam is at critical level.
09:17Get to high ground immediately.
09:19Oh, my God.
09:21And I've already called 911.
09:22It was just raising so fast, you couldn't even make decisions.
09:27What did you see going on next door?
09:29Well, I saw him pop out every once in a while on his debt.
09:33He briefly spotted his next door neighbor.
09:37There he is.
09:37See, it's already almost to his knees.
09:39He's on his feet.
09:40Yeah, that's the last time that I've seen him.
09:43Man, I don't know what to do, guys.
09:45When the water finally subsided and I got out, they were the only ones that weren't here.
09:52The couple, Nola and Robert Ramsor, were still unaccounted for.
10:00Their daughter, Shalena Jordan, was there trying to figure out what had happened to her parents.
10:06All the other neighbors have been found.
10:08My parents were the only ones that haven't been found yet.
10:11What are your thoughts?
10:14I don't know.
10:15If they were to go into the river, maybe try to escape?
10:20Neither one of them can swim.
10:22They can't swim?
10:24Neither one of them can swim.
10:25This looks like the master bathroom.
10:35What's the left of it?
10:39So this is your dad?
10:40Mm-hmm.
10:41This is your mom?
10:42And you're an only child?
10:43Yeah.
10:43So you're going through this by yourself?
10:45Yeah.
10:46I just can't imagine what they went through.
10:53And if...
10:55And if they did get washed away like what they did by themselves, they'd be done alone.
11:04I'm so sorry.
11:05The whole community is just destroyed.
11:11Everything's gone.
11:15It looks like a war zone.
11:25The devastation here was a shock so far inland in the North Carolina mountains.
11:30And it was a vivid sign of how even places like this are now vulnerable to climate-related storms.
11:41But Halim was actually a signal of even more.
11:45One of the most striking examples I'd seen in years of reporting on disasters.
11:50Of how communities are struggling to make themselves safer and prepare for the next storm.
12:00Over the past decade with NPR and Frontline, I've been covering the impact and recovery from disasters like Killeen.
12:12Going back to Superstorm Sandy's destruction in New York and New Jersey.
12:17Major damage along the entire New Jersey coast.
12:20Splitting nearly 20% of the Big Apple.
12:23Hurricane Maria that plunged Puerto Rico into darkness.
12:26Everywhere damaged infrastructure blocked roads.
12:30And devastated homes.
12:32Irma that tore through Florida.
12:34Irma's wrath is visible as far as the eye can see.
12:38And Harvey that left much of Houston underwater.
12:42That is equivalent to about a trillion gallons of water.
12:45The federal government spends more than $50 billion a year helping communities recover.
12:51Including properties that have flooded repeatedly.
12:54That's four floods.
12:55In an endless cycle of destruction and rebuilding.
12:59This is Laura Sullivan from NPR and PBS.
13:03For the past eight months, we've been investigating the forces fueling this cycle.
13:08And following how it is continuing to play out in North Carolina.
13:16Residents say they feel like they've been left behind and forgotten, waiting for government funding so they can rebuild their lives.
13:23We could see that cycle underway as we returned to Asheville repeatedly in the months after Helene.
13:31Most of the missing had been accounted for.
13:34But more than 100 people were dead.
13:38Including Zubila Shafiq's husband, Omar.
13:41He was found just a little bit back there.
13:47Right along the bank.
14:02This is your first time back here?
14:04I haven't really been able to get up here because every time there's like, you know, something.
14:15This is the first time I feel like it's been pretty clear for me to walk up here.
14:22He was a good, good, good, good person.
14:26A good man.
14:27And this is not how anybody deserved to go.
14:34The whole place is elevated.
14:45Exactly.
14:46I thought for sure his apartment would be fine.
14:49I was like, it's on stilt.
14:52Hey, do you think they're going to rebuild here?
14:55Yeah.
14:56These three.
14:57So they're just going to fix them up?
14:59I think these three, I think they are.
15:01Wow.
15:01And then rent them out again?
15:03I think so.
15:03What do you think?
15:05I think that's a terrible idea.
15:07I can't see how that could be a good idea.
15:11Do you worry that knowing that the river did come 26 feet up these buildings that it could do it again?
15:18Sure.
15:19We don't know anything anymore.
15:21What we thought we knew doesn't exist.
15:23So why not?
15:24Why couldn't it do it again?
15:25It's unclear what the future plans are for the property.
15:32But just about everywhere we went around Asheville, people were eager to put homes and businesses back the way they were.
15:40Thousands of people were still displaced.
15:46Unemployment was high.
15:47And the once bustling Asheville tourist area of Biltmore Village felt like a ghost town.
15:53Moe's looks about the same.
15:56Yeah, so does Osaka.
15:59I mean, those things are going to have to be completely rebuilt.
16:03Kit Kramer, the head of the Asheville Area Chamber of Commerce, has seen bad flooding before.
16:09This was Biltmore Village's third in 20 years.
16:13This is a tourist area, and it's one of the most popular places to visit in this whole state.
16:22What's the most important thing to you right now?
16:25I want people to be able to work again and support their families.
16:29It's like, get back in here, get our businesses open.
16:32And we can work on the remediation pieces.
16:35We can work on coming back in a better way along the way.
16:40So if you lose this neighborhood...
16:43Just can't happen.
16:44Can't.
16:44Cannot happen.
16:45We've got to have it back.
16:47So you're thinking, let's get the businesses open.
16:50Right.
16:50And let's worry about the resiliency.
16:53As we're working on things.
16:55I also think it is imperative that we be thinking in those terms the entire time that we're redeveloping.
17:02Yeah.
17:02But first and foremost, businesses need to reopen and jobs need to be created again.
17:13I went to City Hall to speak to the mayor, Esther Manheimer, about the rebuilding effort.
17:20When I talk to property owners, they have a great deal of concern about a future event affecting their property regardless.
17:29And so they're really debating, do I make this kind of investment again, knowing this could happen?
17:36So if the city wanted to tell people, look, we want you to build to a higher standard, could you do that?
17:44What we can do is we can provide them with an advisory regarding where, what height to build to, given this flood event.
17:52So you can't tell them to do it, but you can ask nicely.
17:57We can only enforce the building code.
17:59We can't make you exceed the state building code.
18:03The rules here do have some elevation and storm mitigation requirements.
18:07But the mayor told us they don't account enough for new climate realities.
18:12FEMA has said strong building codes are critical, but that the existing ones in most states are outdated and ineffective, with North Carolina's being among the worst.
18:22Look, if we could get everyone to adhere to current code requirements or even strengthened code requirements to try to prevent this sort of effect of a disaster on a community,
18:34we could lessen the overall disruption to a community, the hit on the economy, on the lives of the people, and we would rebound from it quicker.
18:44But I think individual property owners would say, well, why do I have to bear the burden of that?
18:54We headed to the hills outside Asheville, where some of the worst devastation occurred.
19:02Thousands of mudslides left 23 dead.
19:05We met Allegra West, back on the hillside, where her neighbors were swept away.
19:18This is the house that came down across here.
19:22It was upside down across the road.
19:24It's kind of amazing seeing the yellow house, because when we were here last time, there was a house inside the house.
19:29The area had been mostly cleaned up, but James and Judy Dockery's belongings were still scattered around.
19:39These are the things that belong to them.
19:41Yeah, definitely their ice trays and kitchen wares.
19:45I mean, you see a whole life here, right?
19:51God, you really find everybody's things right here.
19:55Oh my goodness.
19:57James Dockery.
19:58James Dockery.
19:59Despite the devastation and the threat of mudslides, neighbors were already making plans to rebuild.
20:12When people are talking about rebuilding, are they talking about safety, mudslides, flooding?
20:18I think not enough.
20:21Not enough.
20:22There are many people who are thinking about that.
20:25But most people kind of just have the blinders on of survival, of just getting basic needs met and getting things rebuilt.
20:34There's definitely a grit to this area where, you know, people have been here.
20:39Generations of families have been on this land, and they're going to continue to stay here.
20:46It's your decision, really, whether you want to take that kind of a risk and say, oh, I'm going to build back, and it's not going to be built as it should be built.
20:56What's going to happen in 60 years?
20:59Are we going to be washing people away again?
21:02I don't know.
21:04Kim Wooten is an engineer who spent a decade working on the state's building codes.
21:08Do you think that we can build for these storms that are coming?
21:18Yes.
21:19We can build stronger homes.
21:20We make sure that we're not building in not only floodplains current, but projected floodplains.
21:26We can make sure that homes are built to withstand winds, increasingly strong winds that they could receive during a hurricane.
21:34We can do all kinds of things to build better.
21:37That does cost money.
21:40But what's the life worth?
21:42What are your memories worth?
21:45Do you really want to see, you know, your children die in a flood?
21:50What is that worth?
21:52What price do you put on that?
21:53I don't know.
21:55What do you say to people who say, look, this was 26 feet of water in some places.
22:01There's nothing you can build that will protect you against 26 feet of water.
22:06That's true.
22:07It's absolutely true.
22:08You just don't build there.
22:10The federal government has weighed into this debate.
22:15Through FEMA, it runs a flood insurance program and makes maps that delineate the riskiest areas.
22:20Those seeking coverage for rebuilding are typically required to take steps to mitigate against future flood damage.
22:29We have our climate scientists on this side, our data scientists who take all the climate hazard.
22:34Jeremy Porter is a data scientist who studies flood risk and has analyzed FEMA's maps.
22:40On the map, you can see the FEMA flood zones in Asheville.
22:44They do a pretty good job of capturing the major rivers that come through Asheville.
22:48Yeah, here are all the big rivers in Asheville.
22:50When you add in the 100-year flood layer from First Street, ultimately what we end up seeing is a tremendous amount of risk on these streams that are sort of offshoots of the major, major rivers.
23:02If you go back and read about the actual flooding that occurred, in these areas are where we saw a lot of the major flooding.
23:08This is where a lot of the flooding was.
23:10In particular, we looked at North Carolina after Helene came through, right?
23:14And ultimately, we found that only about 2% of the properties that were impacted actually were in a FEMA zone.
23:21And 98% of the properties were not?
23:24Yeah.
23:25Anywhere in the Appalachian region, the models just aren't developed to pick up heavy precipitation events.
23:32Porter found a similar situation around the country.
23:36When you looked at the picture nationally, how different were your maps from FEMA's?
23:41We found about 2.2 times as many properties had one in 100-year flood risk.
23:46More than twice as many people in America have a flood risk that aren't even aware that they have a flood risk.
23:54Yeah, it's a huge issue.
23:57This is an issue that has come up repeatedly during my reporting on disasters.
24:03Over the past eight months, I've been tracking how rebuilding has worked out in some of those previous storms.
24:09And whether those places are any safer today.
24:14I went back to Staten Island recently, which was hit hard by Superstorm Sandy in 2012.
24:23Sandy makes landfall slamming into the East Coast.
24:26That 12-foot surge came right into these neighborhoods.
24:29It was one of the worst flooding events in New York's history, and billions were poured into the rebuilding effort.
24:39I headed to a part of Oakwood Beach, a neighborhood that had been touted as a model for how to protect communities from future disasters.
24:48It once had a couple hundred homes, before it was decimated by Sandy.
24:55We were very close together, very close-knit. Everybody knew each other.
25:00Joe Tyrone, who'd owned a house here, took me around.
25:04Now this is where my house was. See that ridge there? Right there. That was my backyard.
25:07That little...
25:08This one?
25:08Yeah, right here. Right here.
25:11After the storm, Tyrone learned of a federal program meant to help state and local governments offer buyouts to homeowners in high-risk areas.
25:22He organized his neighbors to apply for the buyouts.
25:25This was a multi-generational neighborhood. So the grandmothers, grandparents lived across from the grandchildren. So they're forever.
25:33But on that block that I had my home, three people had perished. So this is like, you know, they had to get out.
25:41There's about 100 yards, and that is where the ocean is.
25:45Within a couple years, most of Tyrone's neighborhood, and some other parts of Staten Island, had taken the buyout.
25:52New York Governor Andrew Cuomo visited Oakwood Beach.
25:55Thank you very much.
25:57Governor Andrew Cuomo was promising to return the area to nature, a natural buffer against future storms.
26:04We're now rebuilding oyster beds, wetlands, and marshlands, and grasslands. Why? Because they all had a purpose. They were all part of the balance.
26:16But after spending $200 million, it hasn't quite worked out that way.
26:25So why does this have a fence?
26:27This is the exact area that the Staten Island Soccer League purchased from the state for some nominal amount, and they're going to build their soccer fields here.
26:36The state allowed the league to purchase six acres of the buyout land for fields, seating, and there's talk of a clubhouse.
26:43Is this what you thought was going to happen when you sold your property?
26:48No. I thought it was just going to be like a big marsh, and that I wouldn't even be able to get to my property.
26:55I thought the streets would be gone. It'd just be paths. It'd just be natural areas.
26:59It would be some real environmentally friendly... That's what I pictured.
27:03Just steps away from the planned soccer complex, Tyrone showed me still existing homes that had flooded during Sandy.
27:11Can you explain this to me? Because I'm seeing empty fields, and then I'm seeing a neighborhood right next to it.
27:17And new homes that had gone up, too.
27:20That's a semi-attached home right there, which probably was a bungalow or two.
27:25What do you think when you see this?
27:27They're definitely vulnerable, without a doubt.
27:29This had a 15-foot wave. I'm not going to say that's going to happen in the next year or two,
27:33but the fact that it was a 15-foot wave says that these people are at risk.
27:39This area got walloped during the storm.
27:43I asked the Staten Island Borough President, Vito Fasella, about the patchwork that this area had become since Sandy.
27:50I think the end result was a hodgepodge of things, from condemnation of homes.
27:57People who lived there for generations had to move.
27:59Like this one?
28:01Then here, you have people with homes were destroyed.
28:03They just decided to move along.
28:05I think bureaucracy, for lack of a better word, caused it to go on for years and years and years.
28:10Other people wanted to stay and keep their roots here.
28:12He told me that he supported redeveloping here, even in buyout areas.
28:20We have some of the best views around and underappreciated of the water.
28:24We should welcome people to build near the water when possible and bring life back,
28:30as opposed to watching empty lots.
28:32So I would be a proponent of that.
28:34So taxpayers spent a lot of money buying out these properties.
28:38Was it all for nothing?
28:40I don't know if it was all for nothing.
28:41I think in some cases it was justified.
28:44People didn't have a recourse.
28:46And there were those that said, you can't go back in there.
28:49It's just totally unsafe.
28:51Sometimes the pendulum swings too far in one direction.
28:54And maybe it becomes time to re-evaluate some of those decisions and see where it is safe,
28:59that people can move back in.
29:01What if those people come back to live and make the most of what they've got,
29:05but they end up under 18 feet of water and their homes are destroyed and more people die?
29:13Well, that's what I'm saying.
29:14If we have the mechanisms to mitigate against that, then by all means.
29:20But if we're just going to live in fear forever, it's probably not the way I want to live, frankly.
29:26We think about disasters always happening to somebody else or always somewhere else.
29:36And to a certain degree, I think it's because we've always priced risk below what it really takes to change behavior.
29:42And when you look at Sandy, when you look at how that area recovered from that storm, what do you think?
29:59We put a lot of stuff right back where it was.
30:02I mean, Mayor Bloomberg was really trying to get to how do I mitigate against future storms?
30:09But when they started looking at the cost and what it would involve to protect everything,
30:14they realized that really wasn't going to be practical.
30:17So they went back and they did things like, okay, well, can we at least figure out how to block the subways
30:22so they don't get salt water in them?
30:25So things like that.
30:26Can we make improvements and elevate critical equipment?
30:30I think when you go in these areas, you see the recovery's gone well.
30:34There is some mitigation, but it should not lead anybody to the impression that it won't happen again.
30:39You put that much water in that area, we're still going to have impacts.
30:42So you think if Sandy happened again tomorrow?
30:46We might have done better on protecting the subways.
30:50But I think as far as homes go, as far as the small businesses,
30:55I think there's this tendency that we think, well, it won't happen again.
30:59And I'm like, yeah, well, you know, to say it won't be as bad, that's hard to say.
31:05After Sandy, FEMA and the city clashed over updating the flood maps
31:11and have so far left them largely unchanged.
31:18FEMA goes back and forth with the city of New York on what the actual maps are going to look like.
31:23And ultimately, we're leaving a lot of residents in an area that have flood risk
31:28without flood insurance and without the knowledge that they have that risk.
31:31I think it's a politically, wildly unpopular thing to do,
31:36to go in and say, let's change the flood maps,
31:40and then your constituents see that you've just increased the flood risk,
31:45flood insurance requirements by double in your community.
31:48And it's just something that no one's wanted to tackle to this point.
31:51Why did New York City fight FEMA in expanding the flood maps?
31:58The city's thinking about its tax revenues.
32:00It wants that $2 billion growing to $3 billion a year in tax revenue
32:04and is afraid to discourage growth in the areas that FEMA thinks are going to be at risk
32:12and therefore insurers might not provide insurance for.
32:16And now growth is harder.
32:17Brad Lander is comptroller of New York City and candidate for mayor,
32:22who's studied the growth and development since Sandy.
32:26Right now, basically 30% of New Yorkers live in the 100-year floodplain.
32:32Wow.
32:33The real estate value in the floodplain is $176 billion.
32:37Is that what you thought was going to happen after?
32:40I mean, this, we have these dual crises.
32:43We have an affordability crisis, and we're desperate for more housing,
32:47and we have a climate crisis that when it wallops you like it did in Sandy,
32:53those days you're really looking at it.
32:56And then the sun comes out again, and it kind of recedes from memory,
33:01and we are not as good as we need to be at putting those things together.
33:05This tension between development and how to deal with future storm risk
33:13always seems to play out in the aftermath of these disasters.
33:19And development usually has the upper hand.
33:22I saw that vividly in 2017.
33:27In a part of Houston I visited in the days after Hurricane Harvey.
33:31It was the third major storm in three years here,
33:40flooding more than 150,000 structures and killing 36 people.
33:47There's something incredibly surreal about driving a boat down the neighborhood street.
33:54We came across Joseph Hernandez returning to his house for the first time.
33:59Where do you begin?
34:03I don't know. I mean, I'm just going to wait and see.
34:06I mean, I guess I have to throw away everything.
34:09There's no other way, you know.
34:10I have to get out of the house and redo it, I guess, if possible.
34:16Did you not think it would flood here?
34:18No, I didn't.
34:19You know, when we left, the water was up to the curb, up to the driveway,
34:23and I thought, man, maybe it's going to get, you know, by the door or something like that.
34:28Do you have flood insurance?
34:29No, I just have regular insurance.
34:31Just regular?
34:32Yeah.
34:32How come not flood?
34:34Because in the floating areas, they make you buy a flood insurance,
34:39but he was in a floating area, so...
34:41You were not required to get it?
34:42Not required. That's right.
34:44So I don't, many people around here, they don't have it.
34:47His house was in a neighborhood just behind the Attic's Embarker dams.
34:53The Army Corps of Engineers built them to protect Houston
34:56from its perpetual problems with flooding.
34:59But during Harvey, water backed up in the reservoirs behind the dams
35:04and flooded thousands of homeowners like him.
35:13We returned to Houston recently and met Charles Irvine,
35:17an attorney who represents homeowners still seeking compensation for the flooding.
35:22This is the highest point of the Barker Dam, yeah.
35:25Of the Barker Dam.
35:26And if you walk over here, you'll see the water that's been collected.
35:31Just a little bit this way, they put houses.
35:35About five miles.
35:37So if you go this way and there's enough rain,
35:41all this water is going to back up into those homes.
35:45It's a big, flat pond.
35:48And as the water rises, it moves further back.
35:51Finally, it hits the neighborhoods.
35:54The neighborhoods he was talking about
35:56were the ones we had visited right after the storm.
36:01The community's vulnerability dates back to when Houston
36:04was one of the fastest-growing cities in the country.
36:06Over the years, more than 20,000 homes were built inside the reservoirs.
36:15There was private property that would be flooded back behind the dams,
36:20kind of the back end of the dams, if you will, the back end of the reservoirs.
36:24Jim Blackburn is a prominent environmental lawyer in Houston.
36:28And that private property ended up being developed.
36:32If you're a private landowner, you could develop that land.
36:38The Army Corps of Engineers began looking at ways
36:41to mitigate the flood risks in the reservoirs.
36:44They even considered a dramatic move, like in Staten Island,
36:49a buyout of properties inside Attucks Embarker.
36:54But no one wanted to spend that much money.
36:56And the cost of trying to undertake something like that now
37:00has skyrocketed to as much as $13 billion.
37:03Did anybody think in these previous decades
37:10that maybe it wasn't the best idea to build 20,000 homes
37:15in a reservoir meant to hold water during a storm?
37:20Many people did think that.
37:23In fact, we have, during the course of the lawsuit,
37:26we found that there were some developers
37:28whose engineers, before the development was built,
37:31would write to the Corps of Engineers
37:33and say, hey, is this really in a reservoir?
37:36And they would say, yeah, it is.
37:41Since 2017, the Army Corps in Harris County
37:45have tried to do some flood mitigation,
37:48including shoring up the dams
37:50and improving the drainage and storage systems.
37:53The county's flood control district
37:55is led by Tina Peterson.
37:58If Harvey happened again,
38:00those homes in the reservoirs,
38:02would flood again.
38:05Yeah.
38:06I think that, you know,
38:08I can't say that all of them would.
38:10I can't really project,
38:11because I know we have done work.
38:13Mm-hmm.
38:14So, but there is a,
38:15there is some residual flood risk that exists.
38:18Do you worry that the incremental nature
38:21of this effort to handle this water,
38:26that it's not enough?
38:27That's a great question.
38:30We talk about this all the time.
38:32So the work that we do is very incremental.
38:37And we see an opportunity.
38:39We do, you know,
38:41something to address that specific location.
38:44And we have visions for finding ways
38:48to do something transformational.
38:49The Houston Metro housing market,
38:54it is so hot with prices soaring.
38:57Meanwhile, since Harvey,
38:59the real estate market has been thriving,
39:01with nearly 5,000 homes sold in the reservoirs.
39:05Right now, it's a great time to buy.
39:06One of them was Joseph Hernandez's house.
39:12When we found it again,
39:14it had just been sold for a second time.
39:19From the real estate listing,
39:20it was clear it had been completely renovated.
39:24It looked as though it had never flooded at all.
39:31We've always had this view
39:32that we could build our way out of problems.
39:35Concrete channels, levees,
39:38whatever the problem,
39:39there was an engineering solution for it.
39:42And I think that served us well.
39:44I think we were always behind
39:46on playing catch-up with development.
39:49The storms that we're looking at in the future
39:51are so much larger
39:52than what we designed for in the past
39:55that I don't think we'll be able to catch up.
39:58I think we're going to have to learn
39:59to live with water
40:00in a way that we've never lived with water.
40:03I think what we're going to keep seeing
40:05is that the water is going to rise higher
40:08than you planned for.
40:09It's going to keep coming.
40:10It's going to keep coming.
40:11And at some point,
40:13we're just going to determine
40:15it makes more sense
40:16not to occupy these high-risk areas
40:19that keep flooding again and again and again.
40:22That's a lot of Houston, though.
40:24It's a fair chunk of Houston.
40:26As we start with the program tonight,
40:36we first want to remember
40:38all of the citizens
40:40who we've lost here.
40:42On our trips to North Carolina
40:44in the months after Helene,
40:46we saw how the community's sense of safety
40:49had been shattered.
40:50Mere words cannot match
40:52the depth of the sorrow
40:54of those left behind.
40:58107 people were ultimately confirmed dead
41:01from the storm.
41:02One family in Buncombe County
41:05lost 11 people to the storm.
41:09On this hillside outside Asheville,
41:12heavy rain triggered multiple landslides,
41:15killing 13 people.
41:16This is a catastrophic storm,
41:19and this is one of the most
41:20catastrophic debris flow events
41:21in terms of human life,
41:23loss of human life
41:24that we've had in North Carolina
41:25for just individual debris flows
41:27at one site.
41:29Rick Wooten is a geologist
41:30who worked for a decade
41:32on a state database
41:33that predicts where landslides
41:35will most likely occur.
41:38This hillside was marked in the database.
41:41Have there been landslides here before?
41:44Yes.
41:45There have.
41:45There's been at least one
41:46debris flow event
41:48that we can see
41:48in the older deposits.
41:50You can see that in the rocks?
41:51You can see that in the...
41:52That there was a landslide here before?
41:54It's not just a freak thing that happens.
41:58This is actually sort of
42:00a predictable natural pattern.
42:03Right.
42:03So it's part of the natural geologic processes
42:07that have gone on in the mountains here
42:09for over a million years.
42:10Many counties here have restrictions
42:14on building in landslide-prone areas.
42:18But Wooten said the strength of the rules vary widely.
42:22And 10 counties haven't been mapped
42:24in the database at all.
42:27Wooten said that's largely because
42:28for several years,
42:29the state cut funding,
42:31delaying the project.
42:32The statement that was made in the legislature
42:35at the time,
42:36the argument that won the day
42:37to cut the funding,
42:38was the landslide hazard mapping
42:40is just a backdoor approach
42:42to more regulations.
42:43In 2007,
42:48state representative Susan Fisher
42:50said she began running into similar opposition
42:53to bills that would have created
42:55statewide safety regulations
42:57to protect people from landslides.
43:00So you were worried
43:01people were going to build
43:02in dangerous places?
43:04Yeah, and just indiscriminately.
43:07What they needed to know more about
43:09is how dangerous that could be,
43:12not only for their own homes,
43:15but for the homes down below.
43:16What happened to that?
43:17Nothing.
43:18There was a lot of arguing
43:20about how stringent
43:23we wanted to make the law
43:24around steep slopes.
43:26Who do you think didn't like them?
43:29I think that any of one
43:31who was representing developers
43:33or homebuilders
43:33didn't want that bill.
43:35When you look at what
43:37the North Carolina Homebuilders Association
43:39represents,
43:40they want business
43:42for their builders.
43:44And if the requirements
43:46are too stringent,
43:47that means they're going to have
43:48to spend more money
43:49to build.
43:50They don't want to have to do that.
43:55I went to the Homebuilders Association
43:57headquarters in Raleigh
43:58and spoke with one of the group's
44:02chief lobbyists,
44:03a former state legislator,
44:05Chris Millis.
44:06We're very focused on affordability
44:08and also just making sure
44:10that individuals can be able
44:12to get into a home
44:13at some point in their lives.
44:16He told me statewide
44:17steep slope legislation
44:19is unnecessary
44:20and counterproductive
44:21because many local communities
44:23have such rules
44:24and can establish regulations
44:26that reflect their community's needs.
44:28We're keeping an eye out
44:30for all state-level regulations
44:32and just making sure
44:34that the rules
44:35that are being put in place
44:36is done so in a way
44:37that's protecting life and safety
44:39as it relates to building codes
44:42and the development industry,
44:43but it's done so in a way
44:44that's affordable
44:45so North Carolina families
44:47can afford some type
44:48of residential dwelling
44:49of their choice.
44:50The year before Helene,
44:53the homebuilders
44:54faced criticism
44:55for their role
44:56in another bill
44:57impacting the state's
44:58building codes,
44:59which were scheduled
45:00to be updated
45:01for the first time
45:02since 2018.
45:05Critics said the bill
45:06left important codes
45:07unchanged and out of date
45:09and left homes
45:10less able to withstand
45:11severe storms.
45:16We obtained extensive correspondence
45:18that the legislative committee chairman
45:20had about the bill.
45:22Much of it
45:23was with the homebuilder's lobby.
45:27In this email
45:28that is sent to you,
45:30the lawmaker lists
45:31the nine things
45:32that they're putting
45:34in the code
45:34and he's asking you,
45:36let me know
45:36if I missed something.
45:39Because we are experts
45:40in regard to the chapters
45:42that are applied
45:43to different aspects
45:44of residential construction.
45:46So we're providing input
45:47to lawmakers
45:49that are going to be
45:49going through
45:50a committee process
45:51to make sure
45:52that we're answering
45:53his question
45:54in regard to
45:55what detail
45:56needs to be addressed.
45:58And so I don't
45:59understand the concern.
46:00Is it the email
46:01that you're referring to
46:01is the email
46:02that I'm on?
46:04Yes.
46:05Are you guys experts
46:06or are you advocates
46:08for an industry
46:09that wants to build
46:11in a way
46:12that makes them
46:12more money?
46:13Oh, absolutely not.
46:15We have experts
46:16on our staff.
46:16We have a director
46:17of codes
46:18that is most certainly
46:19an expert
46:20in building codes.
46:21He's a former employee
46:22at the Department
46:23of Insurance
46:23and he lives
46:24and breathes
46:25all things building code.
46:26And so we most certainly
46:27are experts
46:28in regard to how
46:29the code applies
46:30to residential construction.
46:32Millis insisted
46:33that the codes
46:34the bill left unchanged
46:35had nothing to do
46:36with storm resiliency
46:38and that the group
46:39will always prioritize
46:40public safety.
46:43Since Helene,
46:44he said the group
46:45is concerned
46:45about requiring
46:46storm victims
46:47to rebuild
46:48and elevate
46:49older homes
46:49to newer,
46:51potentially costly standards.
46:53I believe there needs
46:54to be a distinction
46:55moving forward.
46:56I think policymakers
46:57should consider this,
46:59that when someone's
46:59rebuilding
47:00after a natural disaster
47:01in an existing community,
47:04giving them the option
47:05to be able to rebuild
47:06what they had before
47:07I think is needed.
47:08But to prohibit
47:10individuals
47:11to be able to use
47:12the free use
47:15of their own property
47:15to me is a chilling prospect.
47:18And I believe
47:19that individuals
47:20in Western North Carolina
47:21are going to come
47:22to this reality
47:23very soon.
47:27Recently,
47:28the state legislature
47:29postponed
47:30implementing its updates
47:31to the state codes
47:32in the wake of the storm.
47:33And they're even
47:35considering letting
47:36people rebuild
47:37without meeting
47:38existing codes,
47:39which are based
47:40on 10-year-old standards.
47:44Donald Trump has signed
47:45a flurry of executive orders.
47:47Nationally,
47:48the Trump administration
47:49has also taken steps
47:50that stop enforcing
47:52some rules
47:53for flood-prone areas
47:54and end funding
47:56to help communities
47:57update building codes.
47:58The time is now
48:01to build
48:02a safer,
48:03stronger North Carolina.
48:04North Carolina's
48:05new governor,
48:06Democrat Josh Stein,
48:08has been pushing
48:08to speed up
48:09the rebuilding process.
48:11But he's also
48:12expressed concerns
48:13about how it's done.
48:15Whenever you rebuild
48:17after a storm,
48:18you do not want
48:18to be where you were
48:20three years from now,
48:21exactly where you are today,
48:22when the next storm hits.
48:24And we will take measures
48:25to make sure
48:26that does not happen.
48:27It's very hard
48:28to do that politically,
48:29is it not?
48:30We'll see.
48:32The risks are real.
48:34There were stories
48:35where it was front page
48:36national news
48:36that Asheville
48:38was the climate change
48:39safe center
48:40in this country.
48:41And we now know
48:42that is not the case.
48:44Even the mountains
48:45can experience flooding
48:46and hurricanes
48:47that we didn't think
48:48was possible.
48:50And the work it takes
48:52to rebuild
48:53is years and years
48:55and years.
48:56and so
48:57I would not wish
48:59this on anyone.
49:01We've got to understand
49:03that these things
49:03are real
49:04and anything
49:06we can do now
49:07to mitigate
49:07those risks,
49:08we should do.
49:16In the spring,
49:18we went back
49:18to Swannanoa,
49:19to the now
49:20empty neighborhood
49:21where Nola
49:22and Robert Ramsor
49:23had last been seen.
49:24Their bodies
49:28were eventually
49:29found down the river,
49:30about a mile apart.
49:35At the time,
49:37the land was
49:37on the market.
49:39The real estate listing
49:41touted its abundant
49:42river frontage
49:43and potential use
49:44as a mobile home park.
49:47This versatile property
49:48could serve
49:49as a number
49:50of potential uses.
49:51I showed the ad
49:52to Shalena Jordan.
49:54What do you think
49:55about them
49:56wanting to
49:57redevelop
49:57that area?
49:59I mean,
50:00I don't think
50:00they should do it,
50:01obviously,
50:01because of what happened.
50:03And, I mean,
50:03there were people
50:04who were trapped
50:04in their trailers
50:05for 12-plus hours
50:07because it was long
50:07for the water to recede
50:08and be safe
50:09to try to come help them,
50:10you know?
50:10It's a nightmare.
50:12Everyone else
50:13is lucky
50:13that they even survived
50:14from the trailer park.
50:15I mean,
50:16at this point,
50:16I wouldn't live
50:17in Nashville again
50:18after going through
50:19something like that.
50:20In the town
50:23of Hendersonville,
50:24I met Republican
50:24Congressman Chuck Edwards.
50:27He represents
50:28some of the worst
50:29affected areas,
50:30including Swannanoa.
50:32He cautioned
50:33against being
50:33too fearful
50:34about the future.
50:36What do you think
50:37the likelihood is
50:38that a storm like that
50:39would come again?
50:40Well,
50:41they are describing
50:42this as a
50:431,000-year flood event.
50:46And so,
50:46I think...
50:47Do you believe that?
50:48Yes.
50:49None of us
50:50have ever seen
50:51anything like this.
50:53Nobody in my family's past
50:55has ever seen anything.
50:57Statistically,
50:58the storms have gotten
50:59more frequent,
51:00more severe,
51:01even here in Appalachia.
51:02You've had several
51:03major storms
51:04in the past couple decades.
51:06What makes you think
51:07a storm like this
51:08won't happen again?
51:09There's no guarantee
51:10a storm like this
51:11won't happen again,
51:12but I think
51:13everything is a risk.
51:15There's no guarantee.
51:16I'd like to see
51:17the property owner
51:18be able to
51:20better assess
51:21that risk
51:22than some
51:23government-mandated agency.
51:26Life is a gamble,
51:28but property owners
51:29should be able
51:30to make up
51:30their own mind
51:31how they want
51:32to rebuild.
51:33I'd seen this area
51:42go through
51:42the unimaginable
51:43and, like so many others,
51:46struggle with how
51:47to rebuild.
51:50But with more
51:51devastating storms
51:52inevitable,
51:53the question now
51:54is not just
51:55what will happen
51:56in North Carolina,
51:57but who will face
51:59this challenge next
52:00and how will they
52:02respond when they do?
52:03For more on this
52:25and other Frontline programs,
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