Before we get to today’s round of questions, my smart-aleck replies and the real answers, allow me to wish you a happy 2025. This might well be a doozy of a year, but let’s go into it with a positive attitude.
So here’s to 2025 — may we have no more natural or man-made disasters! Sorry, that’s the best I can muster.
Now, to the questions…
Question: After Helene, the two rest areas on I-26 just south of the airport were appropriated for water trucks and other support equipment. The areas were “closed” by posting people in private vehicles 24 hours a day at the entrance to each area, and then posting cardboard, handwritten signs beside those vehicles stating that the area is closed. Who is coordinating this closure and who is paying people to sit in cars at the entrance? Why is the closure being handled in such a haphazard way, rather than having the highway department officially mark them as closed at the rest area approach signs and barricade them off? I pass these areas every day and constantly see confused motorists drive right up to these vehicles performing the closure because it is so poorly marked. Is FEMA involved in this?
My answer: I know when I’m driving a long distance and I pull onto the ramp for the rest area, I’m going to the bathroom somewhere. For you whippersnappers out there, this sense of urgency is just another gift of aging to look forward to.
Real answer: The reader has a point. The rest areas had become a little haphazard a couple of months into recovery, with less than optimal signage.
The good news is one of the rest areas is back open to the public.
“The North Carolina Department of Transportation allowed N.C. Emergency Management to use the two I-26 rest areas to stage equipment so that critical supplies could be delivered quickly during the unprecedented Helene response effort,” Brian Haines, a spokesperson for the North Carolina Department of Public Safety, told me via email. “Operations included a fuel vendor and an equipment vendor providing support to the Tropical Storm Helene response efforts. Both vendors had employees safely block any traffic from entering the rest areas.”
As local conditions have improved, Emergency Management has been able to scale back its operations, “and NCDOT was able to reopen the rest area on the westbound side” Dec. 19, Haines said.
“NCDOT will continue to evaluate the response needs and will reopen the rest area on the eastbound side as soon as possible,” Haines added.
I suspect because the usage was temporary, the state didn’t want to invest in real signs. I’ll note that the eastbound rest area remained closed Thursday, with a handmade sign on the ramp, as well as several bright orange traffic barrels.
While I was there a semi rolled up near the makeshift sign, came to a stop and then had to re-enter the highway. Not optimal, folks.
The red dirt mounds on the site of a new housing development called “The Landing at Meadow View” are visible from Bill Moore Community Park in Fletcher. The development company, BSC Holdings of Greensboro, says its grading contractor was called off site in October to help with Tropical Storm Helene repairs, and that stopped work on the housing project. The company hopes the contractor will be back on site at the end of the month, spreading out the dirt mounds to raise the project’s housing units farther out of the flood zone. Plans call for 216 apartments, 60 townhomes, and 23 patio homes. // Watchdog photo by John Boyle
Question: Actually, I have two questions: 1) What is going on north of Bill Moore Community Park in Fletcher with the earth moving and a mountain of red earth? 2) When do the powers in charge expect to open the rest of the path going across the bridge at Bill Moore Community Park in Fletcher?
My answer: I have two snarky answers for you: 1) This is Fletcher’s latest tourist attraction, “Red Earth Mountain.” I didn’t say it’s a particularly charming attraction; it’s just one that draws attention. 2) I think we all know for certain now that the power in charge is Mother Nature, and as the old commercial for Chiffon margarine used to say, “It’s Not Nice To Fool Mother Nature!” Also, I’m officially a geezer, as that commercial dates to the 1970s. You’re welcome in advance for these types of ancient references in 2025.
Real answer: The red dirt mountain is on the site of a new housing development called “The Landing at Meadow View,” with plans calling for 216 apartments, 60 townhomes, and 23 patio homes. Apartments will range from approximately 1,000 to 1,500 square feet, townhomes from 800 to 1,400 square feet, and villas from 1,100 to 1,700 square feet, according to the development company, BSC Holdings of Greensboro.
I wrote about the project last summer when readers began taking note of substantial tree removal on site. A home dating to the 1800s remains on site with a small copse of trees around it.
Amanda Williams, vice president of BSC Holdings of Greensboro, said last summer that they hoped construction on the buildings would begin in late summer or early fall of this year, with some units coming online by mid-2026.
But Helene had other ideas. Williams said now it’s more likely to be spring or summer 2026 before construction on buildings starts. This year will be dedicated to grading and infrastructure work, mostly.
“We’ve got a bunch of dirt to still move — as you see now, we’ve got to fill the bottom,” Williams said. “We’ve got to fix all the stuff that the water impeded down below.”
The state of North Carolina essentially borrowed BSC’s earthmoving contractor to help repair roads and other infrastructure in the wake of Helene. Williams said BSC hopes to have the contractor back on the Fletcher project near the end of this month.
The plans remain essentially the same, although Williams said they may lose three or four units on the bottom area because they’ll add even more fill dirt in the area now. Even before the flood, BSC had planned to raise the area up several feet above the town’s requirements, but now the company plans to go even higher.
“We’re talking about being seven or eight feet above,” Williams said.
Fletcher voted in December to establish a 12-month moratorium for any new proposed development within floodplains, but the Landing at Meadow View is grandfathered in. Williams said company officials visited the area about three weeks after the storm, including a stop by apartments next to Bill Moore Community Park that flooded, and decided their development would need to be higher.
Williams maintains their development should not contribute to more flooding downstream, as BSC will build up only around the buildings, and they have about 30 acres along Cane Creek that will not be developed.
Tropical Storm Helene undermined this pedestrian bridge in Bill Moore Community Park in Fletcher that leads to the rear section of a greenway. The town is working with its engineering firm to bid out repairs to the bridge, but it will be several more months before that process is completed. // Photo provided by the Town of Fletcher
“Our build-up area is only going to be where the actual buildings are and around them and where the roads are,” Williams said. “So we’re not going to be building up the whole flood area. We’re literally going to be building up — think about this like a bubble around the developed area. So there’ll still be a ton of what’s natural area.”
Eric Rufa, planning director for the Town of Fletcher, noted that the project initially was approved in 2019.
“They started earthwork last summer and are now delayed due to Helene,” Rufa said. “Some portion of the development is to be in floodplain, but the homes sites will be elevated. In the wake of Helene, the developer is also reconsidering higher elevations than required. I do not have a timeline on when they will resume work.”
Williams said if they can get the contractor back on site and the weather holds, passersby should start seeing the big red mounds start to slowly disappear this winter.
Williams told me last summer the project’s holdup from 2019 revolved mostly around permitting, as the site is near a creek and a wetland and needed approvals from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and the North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources. Those permits still remain in place, Williams said.
Now, regarding the pedestrian bridge. This part of the trail system in Bill Moore Park is a popular path, which I can attest to as a fairly frequent user.
But Cane Creek, which passes underneath this bridge, became a destructive demon during the Helene flooding.
“On the outer greenway trail question, the reason why it is technically closed is due to the bridge needing repairs,” Fletcher Town Manager Mark Biberdorf told me via email. “You cannot really see it from the closed side, but the bridge is not fully connected on the opposite side. The amount and force of the water caused the bank to partially wash out where it connects to the bridge.”
The metal pedestrian bridge has a concrete deck and is pretty sturdy, so that says something about Helene’s power.
“The town is currently working with its engineering firm to bid out repairs to the bridge,” Biberdorf said. “It will be several more months before that process will be completed. It involves partial FEMA reimbursement for the expenses, which complicates things.”
Asheville Watchdog is a nonprofit news team producing stories that matter to Asheville and Buncombe County. Got a question? Send it to John Boyle at jboyle@avlwatchdog.org or 828-337-0941. His Answer Man columns appear each Tuesday and Friday. 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/.
www.thecentersquare.com – By Alan Wooten | The Center Square – (The Center Square – ) 2025-04-03 14:11:00
(The Center Square) – Hurricane Helene’s death toll in North Carolina has grown to 107 and is 236 across seven states.
Gov. Josh Stein shared news of a death in the Avery County community of Newland. The wife of a couple camping was among those who died in earlier confirmations; the husband’s death was added on Thursday after his body was found.
The governor said the couple was camping on the last weekend of September when the storm hit.
This weekend marks the beginning of the 28th week of recovery. Damage is estimated at $60 billion.
Helene made landfall as a Category 4 hurricane in Dekle Beach, Fla., on Sept. 26. It was expected to come north to the Appalachian Mountains; however, the rainfall total from its dissipation there exceeded all forecasts.
Some places got more than 30 inches, most were at 24 or more. Due to terrain, water often rushed before it pooled and flooded – very unlike the flooding that happens in the coastal plains.
AccuWeather said rainfall totals were 32.51 inches in Jeter Mountain, 31.36 inches in Busick, and 26.65 inches in Hughes.
Forty-two died in Buncombe County, 11 in Yancey and 10 in Henderson.
Respective state officials say 49 were killed in South Carolina, 34 in Georgia, 25 in Florida, 18 in Tennessee, two in Virginia and one in Indiana.
Numbers were confirmed by The Center Square based on information supplied by the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services; South Carolina Department of Public Safety; Georgia Emergency Management Agency; Florida Department of Law Enforcement; Tennessee Emergency Management Agency; Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin; and the Gibson County Sheriff’s Office in Indiana.
Helene is the fourth most deadly hurricane from the Atlantic Basin in the last three-quarters of a century. Only Katrina (2005, deaths 1,392), Audrey (1957, deaths 416) and Camille (1969, deaths 256) killed more people.
www.thecentersquare.com – By Alan Wooten | The Center Square – (The Center Square – ) 2025-04-02 14:21:00
(The Center Square) – Minority benefit against the majority giving up “agency, creativity, decision-making and other vital skills” in what is described as a valley of an artificial intelligence journey is likely in the next few years, says one voice among hundreds in a report from Elon University.
John M. Stuart’s full-length essay, one of 200 such responses in “Being Human in 2035: How Are We Changing in the Age of AI?,” speaks to the potential problems foreseen as artificial intelligence continues to be incorporated into everyday life by many at varying levels from professional to personal to just plain curious. The report authored by Janna Anderson and Lee Rainie of Elon’s Imagining the Digital Future Center says “the fragile future of some foundational and unique traits” found only in humans is a concern for 6 in 10.
“I fear – the time being – that while there will be a growing minority benefitting ever more significantly with these tools, most people will continue to give up agency, creativity, decision-making and other vital skills to these still-primitive AIs and the tools will remain too centralized and locked down with interfaces that are simply out of our personal control as citizens,” writes Smart, a self-billed global futurist, foresight consultant, entrepreneur and CEO of Foresight University. “I fear we’re still walking into an adaptive valley in which things continue to get worse before they get better. Looking ahead past the next decade, I can imagine a world in which open-source personal AIs are trustworthy and human-centered.
“Many political reforms will reempower our middle class and greatly improve rights and autonomy for all humans, whether or not they are going through life with PAIs. I would bet the vast majority of us will consider ourselves joined at the hip to our digital twins once they become useful enough. I hope we have the courage, vision and discipline to get through this AI valley as quickly and humanely as we can.”
Among the ideas by 2035 from the essays, Paul Saffo offered, “The first multi-trillion-dollar corporation will employ no humans except legally required executives and board, have no offices, own no property and operate entirely through AI and automated systems.”
Saffo is a futurist and technology forecaster in the Silicon Valley of California, and a consulting professor at the School of Engineering at Stanford.
In another, Vint Cerf wrote, “We may find it hard to distinguish between artificial personalities and the real ones. That may result in a search for reliable proof of humanity so that we and bots can tell the difference.”
Cerf is generally known as one of the “fathers of the internet” alongside Robert Kahn and for the internet protocol suite, colloquially known as TCP/IP.
Working alongside the well-respected Elon University Poll, the survey asked, “What might be the magnitude of overall change in the next decade in people’s native operating systems and operations as we more broadly adapt to and use advanced AIs by 2035? From five choices, 61% said considerable (deep and meaningful change 38%) and dramatic (fundamental, revolutionary change 23%) and another 31% said moderate and noticeable, meaning clear and distinct.
Only 5% said minor change and 3% no noticeable change.
“This report is a revealing and provocative declaration to the profound depth of change people are undergoing – often without really noticing at all – as we adapt to deeper uses of advancing AI technology,” Anderson said. “Collectively, these experts are calling on humanity to think intentionally and carefully, taking wise actions now, so we do not sleepwalk into an AI future that we never intended and do not want.”
In another question, respondents answered whether artificial intelligence and related technologies are likely to change the essence of being human. Fifty percent said changes were equally better and worse, 23% said mostly for the worse, and 16% said mostly for the better.
The analysis predicted change mostly negative in nine areas: social and emotional intelligence; capacity and willingness to think deeply about complex concepts; trust in widely shared values and norms; confidence in their native abilities; empathy and application of moral judgment; mental well-being; sense of agency; sense of identity and purpose; and metacognition.
Mostly positive, the report says, are curiosity and capacity to learn; decision-making and problem-solving; and innovative thinking and creativity.
Anderson and Rainie and those working on the analysis did not use large language models for writing and editing, or in analysis of the quantitative data for the qualitative essays. Authors said there was brief experimentation and human realization “there were serious flaws and inaccuracies.” The report says 223 of 301 who responded did so “fully generated out of my own mind, with no LLM assistance.”
SUMMARY: On March 14, 2025, President Donald Trump signed an executive order to dramatically reduce funding for seven federal agencies, including the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), which awarded $266.7 million in 2024. The order aims to eliminate non-essential functions and cut agency personnel to legal minimums. The move sparked backlash from library and museum organizations, warning it would severely impact early literacy programs, internet access, job assistance, and community services. Critics urged Congress to intervene, while the administration framed the cuts as part of efforts to reduce government waste under the U.S. DOGE Service initiative led by Elon Musk.
