News from the South - North Carolina News Feed
A daughter’s grim discovery following Helene • Asheville Watchdog
Asheville Watchdog is bringing you the stories behind the staggering loss of life from Helene, the children, parents, grandparents, multiple generations of a single family, all gone in one of the worst natural disasters to hit the mountains of western North Carolina. This is the fourth installment.
Sarah Moore describes the sensation she felt that afternoon, shortly after Tropical Storm Helene passed through, of her skin crawling, an uneasy feeling that something was amiss.
Her father, Timothy, was missing.
Installment 1: Helene took entire families, couples, children
Installment 2: Fairview landslides from Helene that killed 13 were among worst in North Carolina history
Installment 3: Two sought refuge together, but Swannanoa River’s flooding proved fatal
She searched the basement of the Woodfin home they shared and then checked with her grandmother, who lived in a trailer behind the house. No sign of him.
She ventured onto the concrete foundation where her father planned to build a garage. It was the last place she’d seen him after he ventured out with a chainsaw to clear a fallen tree.
As she got closer, her mind struggled to process the sight before her. Another tree had fallen, trapping her father.
“All I could see were his legs and his feet,” said Sarah, 31.
Sarah sped to a nearby fire station. “I just screamed for somebody to help me, and within five minutes of me finding him, they were down there cutting the tree, trying to get it off,” she said. “I was just waiting to hear…and then they told me that he passed, that he was gone.
“I can’t get that picture out of my mind.”
Timothy Moore, 60, had been a deliveryman for Pepsi for 30 years. He was a year from retirement, his daughter said, and planned to use the garage to house his prized motorcycle, his truck and a classic car he hoped to buy and restore.
“My daddy was a strong person, redneck as hell, but he was a good person,” Sarah said. “He loved to help people. He loved kids. He used to do the Toy Run on his motorcycle.”
Moore also loved the rock band AC/DC.
“He used to work out and put in an AC/DC or Kiss album. It was usually Back in Black or Highway to Hell…and he’d blare the music throughout the house,” Sarah said. “And when the CD was over, his workout was done.”
Timothy Moore’s father had left his family when he was a young boy, and he made sure to be there for his two daughters, Sarah said.
When she was a child he would surprise her with porcelain dolls and would buy food to feed stray cats in the neighborhood.
“He didn’t like cats,” Sarah said. “He would make sure the cats would continue to come back to me just because he saw it made me happy.”
After Sarah, who was facing medical bills, moved in with her dad about a year ago he left money around the house so that she wouldn’t have to ask if she needed a little extra cash.
“He always made sure that we had what we needed and worked his ass off to try to get us the stuff that we wanted as well,” she said. “He was just always there for us.”
Lisa Plemmons
Lisa Plemmons was due at her job cooking for residents of River Bend Health and Rehabilitation the morning Helene roared through. She never made it.
Plemmons had been staying at a campground along the Swannanoa River after a relative sold the house she was living in last year.
“Her boyfriend called and said that he was on the roof at the bathhouse at the KOA [Campground], and his van, like a full conversion camper van, and her Honda Civic car got swept away in the river,” said her son, Jackson Presnell.
For days, Presnell called the American Red Cross and authorities who were tracking those missing from the storm.
“My cousin, Mitchell, was actually out there in Swannanoa, just sitting on the bridge with all the water raging,” looking for her car, Presnell said. “He sat there for a whole day or two.”
Plemmons’ body was found six days later more than a mile from the campground. The cause of death was drowning.
Her son believes she was asleep and did not notice the river rising.
Plemmons, 52, had been a cook at nursing homes for years, her family said.
“This was her calling,” said Presnell’s grandmother, Mary. “She loved the cooking, and the people there loved her because of her cooking.”
Plemmons took time off from work to care for sick relatives and loved preparing meals for her extended family.
“She cooked seven Thanksgiving dinners on Thanksgiving,” her son said.
“She had a very caring heart,” Mary Presnell said. “She was family-oriented. You don’t see that much anymore. She really cared about her family, everybody in it. She looked after them.”
Brian Carter
Brian Carter died at his home in Asheville Oct. 2 of complications from cancer.
“Inability to attend chemotherapy session” and Helene are listed as contributing conditions, according to his death certificate.
Carter, 78, originally from Guyana, was a self-employed janitor, the death certificate said. His widow, Cynthia, declined an interview.
“Let us continue to keep the Carter and connected families in our thoughts and prayers,” his obituary said.
Jessica Kirby
Jessica Kirby, 36, died of “landslide/flooding injuries,” according to her death certificate.
Her body was found Oct. 4 near the Swannanoa River in Asheville.
Kirby, a home health aide, lived in Black Mountain, the death certificate said. She had two children, who lived in Boone, according to an obituary.
Attempts to reach her family were unsuccessful.
Investigative reporter Victoria A. Ifatusin contributed to this report.
Asheville Watchdog is a nonprofit news team producing stories that matter to Asheville and Buncombe County. Sally Kestin is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter. Email skestin@avlwatchdog.org. The Watchdog’s reporting is made possible by donations from the community. To show your support for this vital public service go to avlwatchdog.org/support-our-publication/.
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News from the South - North Carolina News Feed
As North Fork turbidity improves, Asheville also pursues Army Corps of Engineers filtration plan • Asheville Watchdog
As the murkiness of North Fork Reservoir continues to improve — some residents noticed clearer tap water over the weekend — the City of Asheville is pursuing a filtration plan from the Army Corps of Engineers that could be in place by the end of the month.
“Some good news is Water Resources now has a second option at its disposal for treating the turbid water at North Fork reservoir,” city Water Reources Department spokesperson Clay Chandler said at the Monday Buncombe County Helene briefing. “The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is in the early stages of implementing an alternative treatment project that could possibly — and I want to stress possibly — be operational in very late November, very early December. That’s based on information the Corps of Engineers has given us.”
The city has installed turbidity-reducing curtains in North Fork, which supplies 80 percent of Asheville’s drinking water, and it has completed two rounds of treatment with aluminum sulfate and caustic soda, which cause coagulation of sediments and reduce sedimentation. That allowed the city to put 10 million to 15 million gallons of treated water a day into Asheville’s system over the weekend, which likely accounted for the clearer water customers say they saw over the weekend, Chandler said.
The Corps of Engineers system will rely on mobile treatment units, which will be staged at North Fork in a clearing above the dam. The exact number of the units, which Chandler described as “generally shaped like a shipping container,” and precise layout are still being determined. He said the city hopes the system is operational by early December.
“We will pursue this option concurrently with the in-reservoir treatment process, and we’re absolutely not giving up on that, not by any means,” Chandler said. “And it’s possible that the in-reservoir treatment process clears up the lake enough for us to start treating water on a very large scale before the Corps of Engineers system is even operational.”
At the briefing, Chandler said the reservoir’s turbidity had dropped to 18.5 by Monday morning, down from 21.2 on Oct. 31. Measured in Nephelometric Turbidity Units (NTUs), turbidity needs to hit about 1.5-2.0 for the city to be able to fully treat the water to make it potable.
Chandler stressed that the Corps of Engineers’ plan is a construction project, so weather, equipment procurement and other variables could cause delays. Planning started Oct. 1.
Despite the variables, Chandler said, “We are very, very hopeful and optimistic that by early December, based on the information that we have right now, that system will be operational.”
The goal is to reach a capacity of 25 million gallons of treatable water a day.
“That’s enough to keep the system pressurized and provide flushing capacity,” Chandler said, referring to clearing the system of non-potable water. “The flushing part of this is going to be very, very important.”
Once the city starts pushing out nothing but potable water into the system, “we’re going to have to completely replace the water in the tanks and our main transmission and all auxiliary transmission lines,” Chandler said.
That process will take a couple of weeks.
System flush, testing must happen before boil water notice can be lifted
“I think the latest timeline we have for that is two and a half to three weeks, so even though we start pushing potable water, that does not mean that the boil water notice will be lifted immediately,” Chandler said. “We will have to again flush the system and perform some extensive back-end testing before we can lift that boil water notice.”
The entire system, which serves 63,000 residential and commercial customers, remains under a boil water notice. The tap water available now is safe for showering and flushing commodes, but bottled water is recommended for consumption.
Chandler stressed that the Corps of Engineers’ installation timeline may change. The federal agency is in the process of procuring materials, equipment and personnel.
“Over the next couple of weeks, equipment, materials and personnel will begin arriving at North Fork for construction and setup,” Chandler said. “Once construction and setup begins, the contract’s terms will require the contractor who’s going to do all this work to work for 24 hours a day until the system is operational. So we’re trying our best to move this process along as quickly as possible.”
A third round of aluminum sulfate/caustic soda treatment is planned. The city will give the second round more time to work, so the third round will likely take place Monday or Tuesday of next week.
“I want to emphasize again, it is important to note that the in-reservoir treatment process could clear up the reservoir before the Corps of Engineers project is operational,” Chandler said. “However, to maximize redundancy, we are going to pursue the Corps of Engineers project regardless. And keeping that system in place until we have the upgraded filters that we’ve been seeking is a possibility that we’re going to pursue.”
FEMA will pay for the Corps of Engineers system, but the cost was not available at the briefing.
North Fork, which opened in 1955, uses a “direct filtration” system designed for extremely pure water, which the reservoir normally delivers, mainly because of its pristine 20,000-acre wooded watershed. The system cannot handle higher turbidity.
Plates can filter out stubborn sedimentation
The Corps of Engineers systems works with a system of “sedimentation plates” that removes sediment. The lake sediment is mostly very fine clay particles that have stubbornly remained in suspension, and the plates can filter that out.
“To simplify that, it will basically remove not 100 percent but pretty close to 100 percent of the sediment that’s in the water, which is what’s causing it to be turbid right now,” Chandler said.
Chandler said previously that installing a permanent filtration system designed for high turbidity would cost the city more than $100 million. The city does have a “filter upgrade wish list” for North Fork and its other reservoir, Bee Tree in Swannanoa.
“Essentially, if we were to get that project funded, the technology that we would be using at that point is the same technology that the Corps of Engineers will use with their system,” Chandler said. “We would absolutely love to keep this Corps of Engineers system in place until those filter upgrades are made. And if it’s up to us, we will. It’s not completely up to us, though, but we’re going to make that case.”
Asheville City Councilmember Maggie Ullman broke the news about the Corps of Engineers equipment installation and timeline in a Friday Instagram post. Chandler addressed the county briefing the day before but didn’t mention the Corps of Engineers plan.
“It became viable Wednesday night and made its way down to me after the briefing on Thursday,” Chandler said. “We didn’t have a community briefing until today. There was no immediate deadline for any kind of action or anything like that, so we felt comfortable waiting until today to detail it.”
He noted that the timeline was provided by the Corps of Engineers, not the city, which has steadfastly refused to offer a timeline on potential potable water restoration other than to say it is weeks away.
Asheville Watchdog is a nonprofit news team producing stories that matter to Asheville and Buncombe County. John Boyle has been covering Asheville and surrounding communities since the 20th century. You can reach him at (828) 337-0941, or via email at jboyle@avlwatchdog.org. To show your support for this vital public service go to avlwatchdog.org/support-our-publication/.
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News from the South - North Carolina News Feed
NC warns against voter intimidation, shares Election Day tips
SUMMARY: North Carolina has set a record for early voting turnout, with nearly 4 million ballots cast, and officials anticipate over a million more on Election Day. State elections director Karen Brinson Bell announced enhanced security measures, including relocating operations to the State Emergency Operations Center as a precaution against potential unrest. While no increased threats have been reported compared to previous elections, law enforcement is prepared to assist, particularly against voter intimidation. Voters are reminded that polling places will be open from 6:30 AM to 7:30 PM, and mailed absentee ballots can no longer be sent.
North Carolina set a record during the early voting period, with nearly 4.5 million voters, or 57% of the state’s registered voters, casting a ballot before Election Day. Karen Brinson Bell, director of the State Board of Elections (NCSBE), shared updates for voters during a Monday news conference, saying officials expect at least 1 million more to be cast Tuesday on Election Day.
News from the South - North Carolina News Feed
Duke professor dives into early voting numbers
SUMMARY: In North Carolina, both presidential campaigns are focused on swaying the remaining voters as over 57% have already cast ballots. Political expert Matt McCor suggests candidates should emphasize unity and positive messaging about the state. He predicts Attorney General Stein is likely to win the gubernatorial race, but questions whether it will be by the margins indicated in polls. A strong win for Stein could signal success for Democrats in down-ballot races. He also notes that while young voters (18-29) are not voting in large numbers, those who did often lean Democratic, though trends vary outside of college campuses.
Pope ‘Mac’ McCorkle is with the school’s Sanford School of Public Policy.
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