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Are FEMA trailers coming? Status of the Blue Ridge Parkway through Asheville? Where is the Concert for Carolina money going? • Asheville Watchdog

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9 months ago

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avlwatchdog.org – JOHN BOYLE – 2024-11-08 06:00:00

Today’s round of questions, my smart-aleck replies and the real answers:

Question: Any idea why FEMA trailers are not here, and people are still living in tents?

My answer: I don’t know about you, but I was 100 percent expecting to see hundreds of these trailers being flown in beneath the ubiquitous Chinook helicopters we kept seeing after the flood. Disappointing.

Real answer: The first FEMA trailer was set to arrive in Buncombe this week, according to Buncombe County Manager Avril Pinder, who addressed the topic at the daily Helene briefing on Thursday.

I’ve been checking with FEMA this week, and I can say the tent situation might be more complicated than you think. More on that in a minute, but let’s get to Pinder’s details offered Thursday.

“Right now we’re siting our first one,” Pinder said. “We’re working through the permitting process, and we have a homeowner who has land that is not in the floodway (where) we can place that house. So this is the first one that we’re working on getting placed this week.”

Pinder said FEMA has three more homes that have been manufactured and are on their way to Buncombe.

“So hopefully by the end of the next week, we will total out four homes that are now sited in Buncombe County,” Pinder said.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) will begin delivering emergency housing trailers to Buncombe County this week. These trailers are being staged in Hickory. // Photo courtesy FEMA

FEMA external affairs officer John Mills told me Wednesday that the FEMA homes are being staged in Hickory and that some would be arriving this week in Buncombe County.

“I think they are trying to begin helping survivors who are eligible for these temporary units to begin moving in this month, and even as soon as, I think, this week,” Mills said Wednesday.

Mills said he expects the number of these homes coming into the mountains to number “in the hundreds rather than the thousands, across western North Carolina.”

In the case of disasters like Helene, FEMA provides funds for families to help with housing, and that can include an array of choices to secure shelter.

“That can mean making repairs,” Mills said. “It can mean renting a new place to live or buying a new place to live with the money that FEMA is providing.”

Mills said the FEMA assistance is “designed to jump start someone’s recovery to give them a hand up to begin the recovery process.”

It will take the whole community, including charities and nonprofits, as well as private donations for people who’ve lost everything, to make sure everyone is housed.

As far as folks living in tents, multiple reasons could come into play. Some people have concerns about the security of their homes and want to be near the property. Some may want to use the FEMA funds for rebuilding and not spend it on hotels or other lodging. 

Mills noted that survivors are not required to apply for FEMA disaster assistance, although the agency certainly encourages them to do so.

“We are committed to working with every household, every survivor, on a case by case basis,” Mills said. “And if someone is living in an unsafe situation, we encourage them to get in touch with us and let us know what their needs are, and we may be able to provide financial assistance so that someone can get the place to live temporarily. And we may also be able to make someone eligible to stay in a hotel at no cost, and we pay the hotel directly.”

Pinder explained that FEMA has a “Mass Care Team” that has been working individually with “every single person in the shelter to help address what specific needs they have.” As far as the people remaining in county shelters — 164 people as of Thursday — Pinder said the majority of them were previously unhoused.

“So they don’t have a home to go back to, or land that FEMA can help them to put a mobile home or travel trailer on that site at the moment,” Pinder said. “So we’re working through, ‘How do we address that population in our community?’”

Question: When we moved to Asheville in 2006, we lived just 1.2 miles off the Blue Ridge Parkway entrance on Old Charlotte Highway. I would drive what is called “The Commuter Route” every day going to work and coming home — going to work to help set my mind for the day and after work as a reward. I miss those days. As we are seeing portions of the BRP opening, what exactly is the damage from Hendersonville Road to Old Charlotte Highway; Old Charlotte Highway to Tunnel Road; and back at Hendersonville Road to Brevard Road? I dare say, these were the three most traveled routes inside Asheville.

My answer: For the life of me, I cannot understand why the nickname, “The BRP,” never caught on for the Parkway. I mean, you could actually say it, or burp it out. Person one: “What are you doing today?” Person two: “I’m just going up and driving the BRRRRRRPPPPP!” It’s genius.

Real answer: As fate would have it, the National Park Service issued a press release Nov. 6 on this very topic, noting that it had restored access to 11 miles of the Parkway within the Asheville corridor. The reopening spans from milepost 382.5, at U.S. 70 near the Folk Art Center, to milepost 393.6, at N.C. Route 191 near the North Carolina Arboretum, including the French Broad Overlook at milepost 393.8.

“With today’s opening, we have now restored access to over 310 miles of the Parkway,” Blue Ridge Parkway Superintendent Tracy Swartout said in the release. “Incident teams and contractors have been working on this section for over a month, with large numbers of damaged trees, vast amounts of tree debris in the roadway, and heavy equipment at work simultaneously throughout the corridor.”

The Parkway spans 469 miles from Virginia through North Carolina.

The Asheville Visitor Center (milepost 384) has resumed year-round operations daily from 9 a.m.  to 4:30 p.m. The Folk Art Center (milepost 382) will resume operations on Saturday, Nov. 9. 

The Park Service said trails in this section of the Parkway are open “but extreme caution is advised for trail users who may experience hazards resulting from landslides, downed or leaning trees, washouts, and other damage.”

Also, don’t park on the roadside in any location other than official, paved parking areas, as heavy equipment is still active in the area.

Helene left an enormous amount of debris and washouts on the parkway, including the Asheville section.

“Since storm recovery began, National Park Service staff and contractors have moved more than 350,000 cubic feet of storm debris from this 11-mile road segment,” the release states. “This volume of woody debris could fill  nearly 150 shipping containers.”

The Park Service does not have projected opening dates for areas of the Parkway immediately north and south of the 11-mile road segment that opened Wednesday.

“Ongoing roadway and roadside damage evaluations, significant debris removal, and miles of technical hazard tree work remain north of U.S. 70 and south of State Route 191,” the release states. “The NPS will provide updates on those sections when additional information is available.”

Question: Like so many people, I am curious about how Explore Asheville will work with organizations that benefited from the Charlotte Concert for Carolina, which raised nearly $25 million. Is there some form of accountability to ensure that money is spent wisely and that it helps businesses, families, and individuals in need in our communities?

My answer: I’m pulling for it to go toward building more hotels.

Real answer: “All proceeds — estimated at more than $24.5 million — from Concert for Carolina are being split 50/50 between Luke Combs and Eric Church to administer to organizations of their choosing in support of relief efforts across the Carolinas and the Southeast,” Ashley Greenstein, spokesperson for Explore Asheville, said via email. “Combs’ portion is being distributed between Samaritan’s Purse, Manna Food Bank and Second Harvest Food Bank of Northwest NC and Eblen Charities.”

Greenstein said Explore Asheville paid its $1 million sponsorship directly to the concert to then be split equally between these four charities.

“Church’s portion will be directed to his Chief Cares Foundation,” Greenstein said. “Church’s Chief Cares is focused on helping established charities and organizations that are well-managed and organized and capable of swiftly delivering aid directly to the families affected by Hurricane Helene. In a video aired during the concert, Church committed to building 100 homes in Avery County.”

Update on the Always Asheville Fund: Last week I fielded a question about the Explore Asheville Always Asheville Fund, which the organization started to help small independent travel and hospitality businesses throughout Asheville and Buncombe County recover from Helene. A reader had asked why it was taking so long for Explore Asheville to field an application for the grants.

Greenstein’s explanation came in after the deadline, so I’m publishing it now.

She said Explore Asheville announced the new fund on Oct. 7, seeding it with $300,000 from their earned revenue budget.

“Through multiple fundraising efforts, we were able to grow the fund to $770,000 and counting within three weeks,” Greenstein said. “The Always Asheville fund application opened 3.5 weeks after it was announced. on Oct. 31, and is one of the few grant programs currently available for small, independent businesses.”

Explore Asheville is also administering the fund “through an abbreviated process, with the goal of beginning award disbursements before Thanksgiving.”

“We know it’s overwhelming for many businesses to navigate recovery, so we also created a list of available financial resources for businesses and individuals, which we shared in our board meeting last week and can be found at https://always.exploreasheville.com/business-resources,” Greenstein said.

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/.

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Why can’t we just sterilize bears? Or relocate them? What happened to the City of Asheville water report? • Asheville Watchdog

Published

4 hours ago

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August 5, 2025

By

avlwatchdog.org – JOHN BOYLE – 2025-08-05 06:00:00


A reader asked about growing black bear populations in western North Carolina and potential control methods like trapping, birth control, or castration. Wildlife experts explain bears do die from vehicle collisions and legal hunting, but these don’t sufficiently control the population. Castration and fertility control are not feasible due to biological, logistical, and financial challenges. Relocating bears is ineffective as they often return. The best solution is removing human-related food sources such as unsecured garbage and bird feeders to reduce bear habituation. Additionally, a reader questioned Asheville’s water quality report timing, clarified as a misunderstanding—the 2024 report including post-Helene data is online, with no paper copies printed to save costs.

Today’s round of questions, my smart-aleck replies and the real answers:

Question: Regarding the bear situation, my concern is that nothing kills these bears. Did you ever see a roadkill bear, like a deer, raccoon, possum or squirrel? So, every year these mamas are producing one or two more cubs, so every year the population is increasing exponentially, as more reach the age to reproduce. What is the answer? Trap and export them? Feed them birth control pills maybe? How about capturing males and castrating them? Something’s got to be done soon as it continues to become a problem. I’m sure you will have a witty answer, John.

My answer: Generally speaking, when you toss the word “castration” at a male of any species, wit evaporates instantaneously. Such was the case here. I have also bought a stainless steel codpiece.

Real answer: My recent column about whether we’re heading toward bearmageddon spawned this query. As I noted, we have 8,000 to 9,000 black bears in western North Carolina, and Buncombe County typically accounts for about one-third of the state’s human-bear interaction reports annually.

Our bear population is growing in part because bears have so much access to human-related food, whether that’s garbage, bird feeders or people intentionally feeding bears, all of which cause problems. 

Before we get to bear birth control, let’s clear up a misconception the reader has that bears do not get hit by vehicles. I’ve seen dead bears on the roadside at least three times, and it’s unfortunately not that uncommon.

“As stated before, collisions with vehicles are the number one cause of mortality of bears living in and around Asheville, followed by legal hunter harvest,” Colleen Olfenbuttel, a North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission wildlife biologist, said via email. “In fact, Buncombe County continues to be the hotspot for human-bear vehicle collisions in the state.”

For 2023, the most recent year available, Buncombe County recorded 18 to 23 fatal vehicle-bear collisions. Haywood and McDowell were close behind, recording 10 to 17 mortalities, according to WRC data. 

“NCDOT, as well as our agency, does a good job of responding to bears hit by cars and removing them, which may be why the commenter never has seen a dead bear,” Olfenbuttel said. “However, the level of mortality caused by drivers is not sufficient to cause the bear population in the Asheville area to decline or stabilize.”

For 2023, the most recent year available, Buncombe County recorded 18 to 23 fatal vehicle-bear collisions. Haywood and McDowell were close behind, recording 10 to 17 mortalities, according to state Wildlife Resources Commission data. // Graphic credit: North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission

Regarding reproductive control by castration or birth control, “neither are feasible or effective,” Olfenbuttel said. 

Let’s start with trying to castrate or sterilize male bears.

“Because one male can inseminate many females and because males tend to disperse widely, castration or sterilization of male bears would not be an effective strategy,” Olfenbuttel said. “One would have to sterilize almost every male bear in the county. That means trapping hundreds of male bears, which is simply not possible, as about half of bears are trap-shy, meaning they won’t go in the trap, no matter what bait you use to try to entice them.”

Also, any such effort would have to be annual, “since male bears would disperse into Buncombe County from surrounding counties to displace the sterilized male bears.”

“Another barrier is where you could trap, as there are areas with bears that you can’t place traps, partly due to lack of landowner permission or areas that have high human use,” Olfenbuttel said. “To trap as many male bears as possible, you would need to trap as many places as possible, which is not possible.”

And castration would be effective for captive animals only in controlled settings, she added.

Regarding fertility control for female bears, Olfenbuttel said the “short answer is there are no chemical fertility controls with FDA approval for female bears. Simply put, none are available for application to female black bears.”

Olfenbuttel added these points that also make fertility control difficult:

  • Fertility control requires treating a large proportion of reproductive females in the population, which is extremely difficult in open populations where movement/dispersal rates are high.
  •  Impacts of fertility control on the health, behavior, and population ecology of treated animals are still largely unknown.
  • There are no long-lasting contraceptive agents that have been developed that avoid the repeated capture of wild animals and avoid the very high cost of re-treatment.
  • terilization and fertility control would cost millions of dollars annually.

Over the years I’ve had multiple readers ask about relocating bears, and this is not practical, either. The WRC has a good explainer page on its website about this. The commission notes that its employees will not trap and relocate nuisance bears for these reasons:

  • This would simply move the problem, rather than solve it. The solution is to modify your habits and prevent bears from being attracted to your home and neighborhood.
  • Most conflicts do not warrant trapping. For example, a bear simply being in a neighborhood is not necessarily threatening or cause for trapping.
  • In most cases, people are the cause of the problem and the best long-term solution involves removal of attractants (bird feeders, unsecured garbage) rather than destruction of the bear.
  • Simply catching every bear that someone sees is not an option; we have no remote places left to relocate bears where they will not come into contact with humans.
  • Relocated bears often return to the place they were originally captured.
  • Catching bears is difficult, and can be dangerous for the bear, the public, and those involved in the capture. It is best to let a bear take its natural course out of the neighborhood or city.

The commission really cannot overstate how important it is to secure potential food sources for bears. These sources are called “anthropogenic foods” because they are related to us humans.

Bear cubs sleep in a tree outside a south Asheville home. Controlling bear fertility comes with a large set of obstacles and complications, wildlife experts say. // Watchdog photo by Katie Linsky Shaw

“Our urban bear study showed that due to the amount of anthropogenic foods in Asheville, Asheville residents are growing more bears — larger litter sizes, younger age of first reproduction,” Olfenbuttel said. “If anthropogenic foods were secured in Asheville and surrounding areas — i.e., remove bird feeders when bears are active, use a bear-resistant trash can, use bear-resistant trash can straps such as Trash Lock, put garbage in a secure place until morning of trash pick-up, don’t purposely feed bears — this would reduce anthropogenic foods, thus impacting reproduction and human-bear interactions.”

Reducing human-related foods would make bears act more like wild animals, which means they would be more wary of humans, Olfenbuttel said. It’s always worth mentioning the state’s “BearWise” program, which offers good rules for coexisting with bears:

  • Never feed or approach bears.
  • Remove bird feeders when bears are active.
  • Never leave pet food outdoors.
  • Clean and store grills.
  • Alert neighbors to bear activity. 

Question: I called the Asheville Water Resources department in February and inquired about the Asheville water quality report. I was told it would be released to the public in April. I recently called to find out if the post-Helene results were available. The supervisor would only refer me to the pre-Helene 2024 results. When I pressed further, I was given the runaround. I know that pre-Helene annual results were always included in early spring with the water bill. Not so post-Helene. What is the water department hiding? And why, for the health of its customers, aren’t the recent detailed water testing results being released to the public?

My answer: Throughout the report, they apparently substituted the letter ‘d’ for the ‘b’ in “turbidity.” Unfortunate, that. 

Real answer: This was a bit of a misunderstanding.

Water Resources spokesperson Clay Chandler said he listened to the call my reader put into the city.

The North Fork Reservoir experienced high turbidity following Tropical Storm Helene. The Water Resources Department’s 2024 Water Quality report, which includes post-Helene results, is available on the department’s website. // Photo provided by the City of Asheville

“The customer service rep got confused when the caller asked for the ‘2025’ Water Quality Report,” Chandler said via email. “The 2025 Water Quality Report won’t be issued until spring 2026. The 2024 report, which includes post-Helene results, was posted to the website in April.”

You can find it here.

Now, if you’re looking for a paper copy, you won’t find one.

“One thing that is different this year is that we didn’t print copies of the report, as a cost-savings measure,” Chandler said, noting that customers were told it is available on the website. “Our regulators at the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality allow us to either mail paper copies of the report or post it on the website. To save approximately $20,000, we didn’t produce paper copies this year.”

Asheville Watchdog welcomes thoughtful reader comments on this story, which has been republished on our Facebook page. Please submit your comments there.

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/.

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The post Why can’t we just sterilize bears? Or relocate them? What happened to the City of Asheville water report? • Asheville Watchdog appeared first on avlwatchdog.org


Note: The following A.I. based commentary is not part of the original article, reproduced above, but is offered in the hopes that it will promote greater media literacy and critical thinking, by making any potential bias more visible to the reader –Staff Editor.

Political Bias Rating: Centrist

The content focuses on local environmental and community issues—specifically bear population management and public water quality reporting—with factual explanations and expert input. It avoids partisan language or promoting ideological positions, instead emphasizing practical challenges and solutions supported by data and authorities. The tone is informational and balanced, reflecting a neutral stance without discernible leanings toward left or right political perspectives.

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Drivers experience is ‘worsening’ at NC DMV, state auditor’s report says

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11 hours ago

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August 4, 2025

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www.youtube.com – ABC11 – 2025-08-04 22:28:44


SUMMARY: The North Carolina DMV faces worsening driver experiences, with average wait times around 75 minutes and over 13% of visits exceeding 150 minutes. Many customers avoid busy locations due to long lines. State auditor Dave Bulock recommends making the DMV autonomous, improving staffing by converting temporary roles to permanent, raising salaries, enhancing IT, and creating a public dashboard for wait times and satisfaction. He also suggests separating the DMV from the Department of Transportation for better efficiency. DMV Commissioner Paul Tyne emphasizes focusing on customer service improvements. Recently, lawmakers approved funding to hire more DMV workers to help ease delays.

Atop the list of issues is the average wait time North Carolinians are spending at the agency.

https://abc11.com/post/nc-dmv-wait-times-experience-worsening-customers-according-state-auditor-dave-boliek/17430115/
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Back to school shopping tips to save some money

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21 hours ago

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August 4, 2025

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www.youtube.com – ABC11 – 2025-08-04 12:45:47


SUMMARY: Back-to-school shopping can be budget-friendly with the right approach. Expert Trae Bodge suggests parents first take inventory of existing supplies and clothes to reuse and involve kids in choosing what they need. Sales are active at retailers like Target, Walmart, and Amazon, with special deals such as Instacart’s Deal Week (August 11–17), offering free lunch essentials daily and 20% off at stores like Staples. Shopping secondhand at places like Goodwill can also stretch budgets, especially when teens understand spending limits. Giving kids gift cards encourages smart spending and independence during back-to-school shopping.

Getting students ready for the new school year can start making a big dent in bank accounts.

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