(bright synth music) - [Announcer] This is "Carolina Business Review."

Major support provided by High Point University, the Premier Life Skills University, focused on preparing students for the world as it is going to be.

Blue Cross Blue Shield of South Carolina, an independent licensee of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association.

Sonoco, a global manufacturer of consumer and industrial packaging products and services, with more than 300 operations in 35 countries.

Welcome again to the most widely watched in the longest running dialog on Carolina business policy and public affairs.

I'm Chris William, of course, and thank you for watching and supporting it.

Last week we started a dialog commemorating its important distinction the one year of Hurricane Helene.

If you missed part one, you can see that on our website or our YouTube channel.

But now we will start restart the conversation with our five panelists.

And this is part two.

And we start right now.

- [Announcer] Major funding also by Foundation for the Carolinas, a catalyst for philanthropy, and driver of civic engagement, helping individuals, nonprofits, and companies bring their charitable visions to life.

Truliant Federal Credit Union, proudly serving the Carolinas since 1952, by focusing on what truly matters, our members financial success.

Welcome to brighter banking.

And, Martin Marietta, a leading provider of natural resource-based building materials, providing the foundation on which our communities improve and grow.

On this edition of Carolina Business Review, Kit Cramer from the Asheville Area Chamber of Commerce, David Jackson from the Boone Area Chamber of Commerce, Mayor Peter O'Leary from Chimney Rock Village, Mayor Carol Pritchett of Lake Lure, and Ben Duncan from the South Carolina Office of Resilience.

(upbeat rock music) Hello and welcome back to our program.

Thank you for joining us.

I am Chris William, and welcome back to all of you.

For part two of this dialog, we're going to talk about Western North Carolina as we commemorate what happened last fall.

And I'm not diminishing it, but I want to talk tourism now.

I want to start with the idea of tourism.

Ben, I'll start with you.

When you talk to South Carolina Parks Recreation interim and Duane Parrish over there, what's the sense, what's the conversation that you have not just with the Office of Resiliency, but where where are you expecting tourism to be this fall for upstate South Carolina, western North Carolina?

Mainly in our partner areas.

We have recovered, many of our parks close.

We saying that with confidence?

Yes.

Okay.

Yes.

All right.

Many of our parks are closed because of the debris and damage to those parts, but they've all reopened and they're ready for business, and and they're moving forward with it, trying to get people back into the parks.

Yeah.

Okay.

What about when you talk to, Visit North Carolina or Wit Tuttle?

Any the gang in Raleigh.

What do you think?

You know, I think they have done a very helpful thing for us.

And that's given flexibility to some of the advertising spend to push people toward western North Carolina.

That started very soon after the storm, once it was responsible to do so.

And then that's been followed up over the summer and has been a consistent part of the ask of the state administration to the General Assembly for specific dollars that can be messaged a little bit, even at a local level, because we're also nuanced and and what we're experiencing, those you can't just have a broad campaign.

You've got to be able to paint some context.

And that flexibility has been helpful with that.

Is it Kit?

Is there, is there a congruency about what the messaging is for tourism in North Carolina?

No?

Well, there's been a concerted effort to to to build that congruency and in, in our area, I mean, there are areas where you can go and not be aware that a storm occurred at all.

And there are areas where that are still very rough.

We're still seeing our numbers are down.

They've been better.

They've been incrementally better.

Every month we welcome a vibrant fall because we missed the whole season last year, and there are so many very small, unique businesses which make all of our communities very special that are, you know, missed the most profitable season.

Mayors, both of you.

I'm going to start with you, mayor O'Leary.

The idea and this is this is not flippant, I promise.

I'm trying to get to a concept here.

Do you get a sense there's a sympathy visit for folks to come to North Carolina, the North Carolina mountains, because they just want to help?

Or is it?

No, we actually do want to be in Chimney Rock.

We want to get back to what we did before.

Well, as Kitt said, there's a there's kind of a, an interesting, set up because we are one of the areas, Chimney Rock and Lake Lure, that was, that was, had a lot of destruction and a lot of there's a lot of repairs going on to infrastructure, particularly the roads and the bridges.

And so that limits the people that can come there.

But we've had a and we've only been open for two months now.

There are areas in western North Carolina that we're able to open very soon right after the hurricane.

So we've literally only been open for business for a little over two months.

So we are definitely getting I don't like to call it a sympathy act because people come in and they say, we're here to support you and we're here to support the Village of Chimney Rock Lake, lure the area, Chimney Rock Park.

And so that's it's very welcome that they are there to support us.

We do I do worry a little bit that that support, that initial support may dwindle somewhat.

So we are very conscious of that.

And we hope that that can continue and can build on itself.

And that's another reason I'll go back to earlier that point about the milestones.

If we can, advertise these milestones and say this is a new milestone when Lake Lure opens, hopefully next spring, that's a huge milestone for Hickory, not Gorge and Chimney Rock.

You know, those are things that we need to kind of build on and get people excited about coming to celebrate that with us.

We appreciate.

How do you characterize the tourism now?

Is it sympathy?

Is it.

That?

No, I don't think so much sympathy.

I think initially there are people just curious as in any disaster, you know, and not necessarily they were tourist.

I think they were just curious people who were there.

But I think that's died down as the whole complexion of the way it looks there is different certainly in like lore and in Chimney Rock too.

So I think there are some people, I wouldn't say it's sympathy who just want to show their support and are coming, but what we have found is, long term tourists who come every summer with their families, who come for the fall season with the leaves, which we're so looking forward to this year.

They're already making reservation to come back.

So many people are making wedding plans for next spring.

Now, because it's that's one of our huge tourism attractions.

And so they have the confidence now, because brides want to know, make sure that there's somewhere that they can shine in their wedding.

Right.

They're making a reservations for next spring.

So I think all those things are permanent things because those are positive things.

Those are permanent tourists that come back.

So I think we're past those people who are just coming to just look, certainly there's they're not as many tourists, but, you know, as there were.

And and we welcome everyone to come.

But I think the milestone issue for us, that is a huge milestone when the lake is open.

But we need to in the meantime, from now until next spring, we need to make sure that we're attracting people to come and take advantage of all the good things that are going on there now, of which there are many.

What about the crown jewel?

What about the Blue Ridge Parkway?

Oh, oh, we we are celebrate every time a segment opens.

I'm not kidding.

Yeah, we were at a Dot meeting this week and we talked about the celebration of a bridge reopening in Swannanoa.

We will celebrate everything because the community needs that for its own psyche.

But we also want people to be aware that that there are things that are returning to normal.

And it is beautiful in our neck of the woods right now.

You know, I think one of the compounding factors for the parkway has been the fact that they've had the Great American Outdoors Act revitalization project going on from Virginia all the way through the state line.

While this was all going on.

So they have been and we're very thankful that they have been flexible in delaying some of that immediate work, especially around the blowing Rock area that was supposed to be closed right now.

And, thanks to Senator Ted Budd and the Department of the interior, they saw the need to delay that closure.

Let us have fall and then hopefully November 1st, they'll start doing what they need to do.

It's interesting because on one hand you're saying stop work, but on the other hand, we all have to remember that we were, as a region, incredibly supportive of the Great American Outdoors Act because of the the lapse in facility maintenance that we'd seen, and that funding was important to make sure that the parkway lasts for 30 more years.

So they've even been in the communication conundrum that we all have been in.

So North Carolina shouldn't have all the fun in reopening things.

Bridge in Rogers and South Carolina and the upstate were damaged and closed.

They were.

Yes.

Are they open?

The most open?

I'm not sure about the numbers on all of them, but I know that, most of those roads are have been repaired and are open now.

Yes.

How does FEMA factor into the flow through money to get that to just Dot been but the infrastructure.

FEMA has been great for South Carolina.

They've come in and they they work with us.

They, they funded we had 158, roads and bridges that needed repair.

And they've come in, about $300 million that they've put in.

So we are we're back on the road or we are they are now, with all those repairs.

What about FEMA on for the smaller towns?

Well, you know, FEMA has been great for us, as have said, they direct funded, scoped and funded, Army Corps of Engineers from October on until now, who have been in charge of removing all the debris, and the sedimentation in the like.

Button in-kind effort.

Right.

That's not a check that's been written to the community.

It's not a check.

And people don't really realize that.

So it's that's a separate contract between FEMA and the Army Corps of Engineers.

And we're not thank goodness, a part of it, because we certainly could never have have afforded that in any way.

So, I mean, that's been a huge, boon to us.

So we're very thankful to FEMA for that.

We're also you know, we certainly have submitted applications through public assistance for our infrastructure and many other things that go on.

But our big things, of course, are the major infrastructure things.

So we've had a great relationship with FEMA.

We really have.

I mean, the people that you work with, with FEMA, sometimes I think FEMA gets sort of a bad rap.

If it were the individuals that we've interfaced with have just been marvelous.

They truly have.

And I think to I've just to add to that, it's a multi-layered approach, and you've got to remember that.

And I think FEMA sometimes gets a bad rap and gets forgotten because for Chimney Rocks, View Viewpoint and Lake Lure, but specifically Chimney Rock, we've got a, $300 million road project from Chimney Rock to Bat Cave.

We've got a as a. Result of.

That was destroyed the road was washed away.

So that is being rebuilt under the direction and guidance of Dot, but that's going to be paid for by FEMA.

And people sometimes don't realize that, you know, FEMA does these big projects and they're the only ones that can do it.

The state can't do it.

The local governments can't do it.

So it's you've got a place for everybody.

And famous place is very important.

And I think both of our experiences has been very positive.

And I think one thing about that is it would never have started.

We have not been obligated for any of our other major projects for infrastructure.

So if we had, we still had to be waiting for that, process to take place and not been able to begin on removing the debris in the sedimentation for the lake until later than it would have been a whole difference in, in our development of our economy.

Not to be too cute with a phrase, but the Trump administration's idea to, with the Doge effort about the idea of restating how to run agencies.

It all coincided, of course, with the disaster in western North Carolina.

And we could we could pick apart some things on funding.

But the idea that now theme is going to push those dollars down to the state level, once that finds traction, is that going to be a good idea, or is it going to take some work for the states to figure out how to run disaster money?

The states aren't currently equipped for that.

To even manage that kind of.

Know.

And we've got so it's going to be and I just want to add, there's been the miraculous work that's been done by the Army Corps of Engineers and by FEMA and others.

And I don't in any way want to appear to be critical of that work.

But if we could always use more greater efficiency and in the movement of money, and so that local municipalities are not having to expend their dollars, I mean, the state has now had to come back and give and give temporary interest free loans of dollars to make up for what Hendersonville has had to put into into repairs, what Buncombe County has had to put into repairs.

Do you think those will be forgivable loans?

Yes, I do, I believe that.

Yeah.

I think when it comes back down to it, the federal government has a role.

And I think one of the things that FEMA did so well in and again, it gets back down to the individual people that came to respond, is that they put that federal badge out there and said, we are going to take the ownership of the leadership of this situation and let people fall in behind them.

You need that sense of order.

The state, if they were to to be the primary on that, that's got to be built.

Not saying that it can't be done, but that's got to be built and hopefully nothing happens while that's being built.

You know, we've got an established thing.

I would agree with Kit.

It can be more efficient.

But it's an established process and it's something that the communities have relied on.

And a number of communities have actually contracted with private consultants to help them manage that flow, because it's a lot of paperwork, as y'all.

Know, there's a will to.

Do it, and there's a there's a will to do it.

And there's also an importance to do it, because if you don't document everything just right, it's back to the efficiency.

You run the risk of leaving dollars on the table.

Okay.

Last last point on FEMA, Ben, we're going to end with you, at least on the FEMA part.

Do you feel like that, that once the states get those dollars as as they talked about in North Carolina, do you feel like South Carolina will have their game?

Their a game when it comes to deploying emergency money?

Yes.

I have no doubt that South Carolina can handle a smaller disaster, a huge disaster like Katrina.

I'm not quite sure.

The states couldn't handle that.

There's a lot of data to be collected.

There's a little infrastructure, infrastructure that needs to go into it.

And when I say infrastructure, I'm on a computer system to gather all this data, to distribute the funds through this system, to make payments to individuals.

If we got the funds here to train all these people for the infrastructure, we can handle small disasters.

But let's shift completely.

I want to and I don't want to blindside both the mayors, but I want to ask you a question that's much more ethereal.

What is community now versus.

We talked about community before, community at Lake Lure, community at Chimney Rock at Swannanoa and Asheville, etc., etc.

but what is community now?

Is it different?

Is it closer or is it more sensitive?

What is it?

You know, I think one of the things that we look at, where we are a year now is community is more like it was before the hurricane started.

To be honest with you, people's lives are becoming more normal.

I think people have, appreciate probably more now what what they have.

They they've been very patient.

We've had nobody leaving, picking up and leaving and deciding their move.

We're not going to wait for this.

So I think there's a sense of we're in this all together.

People realize that after a year, pretty much we've managed to get as far as we have, so there's hope we can get further.

So I think there's an appreciation for, the help that you have and the support and the love from all your neighbors.

There's been a real, appreciation, I think, by me, particularly for our town government, elected officials, that people have been patient and understanding.

You know, we can't make things happen in one day either.

So I think one of the most positive things to me is people are starting to get back to where they were, before a year ago.

And I think that's important as you look ahead and try to plan what is the rest of our lives going to look like?

So I think it's been you would never want this to happen to bring people together, but it certainly did make people realize how fortunate we are.

To be honest with you.

One thing I've noticed, because disasters always bring the community together, and we've seen that in Chimney Rock and unfortunately several times.

But one thing that seems different about this one, for the Village of Chimney Rock, is that people are wanting to be more involved in the decision making and in the carrying out of decisions.

And I think that's a good thing, because we struggled in the past to maybe get people involved, you know, in, in community initiatives and that sort of thing.

And growing out of this disaster.

It of course, it touched every single person, but it's a huge rebuild for us and a rebirth of Chimney Rock.

And everybody wants to be involved, everybody wants to contribute.

And I think that's I've really noticed that change.

It's brought the community, more input from the community members.

And then I want to ask you, just community, just the consideration of community and what a definition of a community does it filter up to an agency in a state?

Yes.

With the Office of Resilience, we're always in disaster mode and we never leave.

That's why we were created.

We've.

This year with Hurricane Helene and Helene, we have been able to pull together the volunteers, organizations, the winds, as they call them, volunteer organizations active in disasters.

And we have over 100 volunteer organizations that we've organized.

Right after the disaster, the governor decided that, one organization would be where people can volunteer and send their money if they wanted to help, and that's when they see.

And they collected over $7 million almost immediately to start getting people, people back in their homes, to start assisting citizens, start helping other volunteer organizations that had trouble, because of disasters.

Does that affect, like like the food programs and their and their buildings are damaged and their trucks are damaged.

So they immediately got started helping those volunteer organizations and individual people to repair and replace their homes.

We have habitat.

We manatee, we have religious organizations who have partnered with us.

[Chris] Faith.

So that's that's really that's really been a great success that we were working with.

EMD Emergency Management Division in those volunteer organizations being active, in, in hurricanes and any disaster.

Go ahead.

And we also, something we started we have watershed coordinators in each one of our watersheds, and they're out working with the local governments to find their vulnerabilities and to start assisting with it with its infrastructure projects, or if it's if they need volunteers in that area to help that area with any needs that they may have.

So that's one person for each watershed.

I can I can tell you're energized by that.

David.

Kate, I want to ask you that this question, except I want to layer on top of it with recent political violence in the country and and feelings feeling even more raw, just community means something different when you layer it over the top of your commemoration of what happened a year ago.

I think even during Covid, we thought we had built collaboration to a pretty high extent.

We have built so much more connectivity.

I you asked asked when we were off camera about how often we're speaking about things like this.

And I get the question about what have you learned in order to be better prepared?

And the thing that I've learned is that connectivity and relationship building, trust building is absolutely essential.

I don't care what kind of disaster you're facing, so I'm hoping we will hold on to that.

And I'm hoping that this season that we're in right now is just the season.

I'm hoping that people will, especially in our area.

I hope we keep the way we have knit ourselves together to to recover and to take care of one another.

I hope that that will continue, but it's built on relationships and trust, and that's hard to come by right now.

But we literally we're doing that during the last year.

And I think I would say that community feels wider now.

You know, I think when we were here last we talked about, you know, the special connection to place that people had and that fueled so many of our efforts, because you may have, you know, come to Lake Lure before or went skiing in the high country.

And that was the reason why you gave back.

We have seen that activity remain.

You know, some of those people that were early adopters of of assistance have come back again, another visiting and that needs to be understood from the local perspective too, that there is a heartfelt connection to the place inside that keeps us going, but outside also of people that would love to be where we are on a daily basis.

They are also still trying to do what they can to keep us going.

And that's heartwarming to know that it's not just you.

Sometimes it goes back to relationships.

We've got so many great ones locally that are into the day to day, but when you look back and hear someone say, I can't wait to get back there, I can't wait to come and visit that.

That helps you understand why you're doing it from that perspective.

Mayor Pritchett had something that you said.

Nobody left the community after all of this.

Is there any way to tell if anyone left?

We're still.

We're still experiencing some of that because people had to get their kids into school.

They had to make money.

And so in some cases, they didn't have a place to maintain.

You measure we are measuring it and we are watching.

And in fact, we've done a series of of surveys and we've done twice done this survey.

We will be rolling out the same survey again in October to get a measurement of what's happening in the business community, because the work force, I will say this in other areas where whatever the trend line was for a community, pre disaster is a predictor.

If you had if your community was shedding talent and people were leaving your community, it's going to intensify the situation.

That is not the case for us.

[Chris] Asheville was what?

Net what gain of people moving in?

[Kit] Well, I mean it's not a huge growth, but it's like a solid 3 to 4%.

[Chris] That's still that's.

[Kit] Solid.

[Chris] Yeah.

[Kit] And so we've been on an upward trajectory.

All those fundamentals are still there.

So I'm confident people want to be in Asheville.

We need more housing.

That's been exacerbated by this.

We need to continue to attract young talent.

And that has been exacerbated by this because it's not it's not the the least expensive place to live.

[Chris] We didn't get to homeless.

We didn't get to the unhoused.

We didn't get to education in this dialog.

We need to we've got about a couple minutes left.

How often?

And I'm looking at the, political chief executives here.

How often do you look now at the weather?

Especially since we're in hurricane season again?

Is there a a kind of a monkey reaction?

So, yes, I think every morning I look up, I look at the weather to see what's predicted because as I said, I'm probably more, in tune with expecting another hurricane than trying to guess that there might be one.

And this is hurricane season here.

So I think as we try to focus on really focus on our resiliency moving forward, because as we're looking at all these whatever improvements we're making, but certainly in infrastructure, we need to make sure we're in a better position, than we were this time.

It's not because we weren't didn't have a good EAP or emergency plan.

You prepare for what you know, but now we know different things.

Yeah.

So now always looking ahead, you know, and saying, how can we be better, how can be more protective of our people and our towns?

I think that you just the weather that's what you have to be checking.

So again I'm going to do this to you.

Mirror earlier you got 30s.

Do you keep an eye on the weather is is a different now.

Personally, I try to do what I can do every single day.

So I look at what I've got to do that day.

I do keep up with our, fire chief, who would be the one that kind of pays attention to the emergency response.

And if he's if he's concerned about something that I'm concerned about it.

But I try to leave that to his area because I've got other things I need to worry about.

But I know people in the community are focused on the weather and definitely when when it starts raining heavy, I think all of us get a little nervous.

Yeah, no, I'm sure it.

Must have.

[Chris] Ten seconds.

[Ben] Okay.

My staff, they get angry with me every time I say this because they hear so often.

Advantages go to those who pay attention.

[Kit] That s right.

[Ben]And that's what we do.

That's what we pay attention.

Thank you for watching.

To say thank you is an understatement.

Thank you.

Until next week, good night.

- [Announcer] Gratefully acknowledging support by, Martin Marietta, Truliant Federal Credit Union, Foundation for the Carolinas, Sonoco, Blue Cross Blue Shield of South Carolina, High Point University, and by viewers like you.

Thank you.

(upbeat rock music)