I-40 Repairs
A year after the eastbound lanes of Interstate 40 fell into the Pigeon River after Hurricane Helene, Democratic Gov. Josh Stein and Trump administration officials gathered Friday near the site of a quarry that will help rebuild the highway.
State officials say the quarry, made possible with help from the Trump administration, will let the N.C. Department of Transportation rebuild the highway far faster and for hundreds of millions of dollars less than if it had to ship the stone in from commercial quarries.
The trucks that carry stone blasted from the steep mountains in Pisgah National Forest will be able to reach the I-40 construction site without getting on the highway. As it is, NCDOT officials expect it will be late 2028 before the two eastbound lanes of I-40 are rebuilt through the gorge and ready for traffic, at a cost of more than $1 billion.
“We know how crucial this roadway is for travel and commerce,” said Sean McMaster, the new Federal Highway Administrator. “And we’re doing everything we can to get it reopened fully as quickly as possible.”
More than a mile of the eastbound lanes of I-40 in North Carolina collapsed on Sept. 27, 2024, after the swollen Pigeon River washed away the earth and rock underneath them. More of the road fell into the river on the Tennessee side of the state line.
The two states worked to stabilize the surviving westbound lanes and convert them to two-way traffic. They opened the road through the gorge on March 1, a single lane in each direction separated by a low-concrete median and short plastic posts. NCDOT signs warn drivers to expect delays.
Rebuilding the eastbound lanes will mean re-establishing the roadbed and building retaining walls as tall as 70 feet, which will require lots of stone.
Last spring, NCDOT received permission from federal officials to mine up to 3 million cubic yards from the forest and this summer received the state and federal environmental permits needed to begin extracting and moving rock. Rebuilding the eastbound lanes of I-40 in Pigeon River Gorge will require re-establishing the roadbed behind retaining walls up to 70 feet high.
As they spoke to reporters on Friday, Stein and McMaster stood on the foundation of two temporary bridges that by mid-December will cross the Pigeon River. Behind them, earth-moving equipment worked on the steep road that trucks will use to haul stone from the quarry site down to a four-mile causeway along the river at the base of I-40. Joining them was James Melonas, supervisor of National Forests in North Carolina.
The National Forest Service helped make the quarry possible and will oversee reclamation of the site when the road is done. “The work to rebuild I-40 is easily one of the most important recovery projects in Western North Carolina, if not the single most important,” Melonas said.
Beyond permitting, the federal government’s primary role in rebuilding roads after Helene is providing money. NCDOT estimates it will cost $5 billion to reconstruct roads and bridges damaged or destroyed by Helene and that it expects the federal government to provide at least 80%.
It received a big chunk of that this week when U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy pledged $1.15 billion for NCDOT’s Helene recovery work from the Federal Highway Administration’s emergency relief program.
The agency had already pledged $400 million to NCDOT from that fund for Helene reconstruction earlier this year.
“These dollars are going to make a big difference in moving this effort forward across the region,” Stein said Friday.
Charlotte Transit Plan
Under the name “Yes For Meck,” the Charlotte Regional Business Alliance is in the home stretch of a campaign to persuade voters to approve an increase in the sales tax to pay for a multi-billion-dollar transportation plan. Yes for Meck’s slogan is “Faster Commutes, Less Congestion.”
40% of all new tax revenue must be spent on roads, in addition to the 40% that can be spent on adding rail lines and 20% for buses and new micro-transit. That’s about $8 billion for roads over 30 years. It’s a crucial part of an estimated $25 billion transit and transportation plan. In November, voters will weigh in on whether to support the plan by raising Mecklenburg’s sales tax from 7.25% to 8.25%. That increase would cost the typical household an additional $240 a year, the city estimates.
Unlike the money for rail and buses, which would go to a new 27-member authority that would work out the details, the road money would flow to the city of Charlotte and to Mecklenburg’s six towns, who would decide how it is spent.
The money would be doled out using a complex formula. The city of Charlotte expects to receive about $100 million a year. Mecklenburg’s six towns have estimated that they will receive somewhere between about $2 million and $12 million a year.
While the money is referred to in shorthand as “road money,” it doesn’t actually have to be spent on building or expanding roads with more lanes for cars. Under the legislation, the municipalities can use it for “costs associated with financing, constructing, operating, or maintaining roadway systems.”
Several of Mecklenburg’s towns indicated last year that they would spend money on widening roads or building new ones.
The city of Charlotte has a 100-page book titled “Blueprint For Charlotte Mobility Investment.” It’s the roadmap for how the city will spend its road money from the tax. It details plans in 22 “strategic investment areas” throughout the city, and groups them by the seven City Council districts. The plan envisions 264 miles of “road widenings, complete streets, sidewalks and bicycle facilities” — though it doesn’t break down how many of those miles would be specifically for vehicles versus bike lanes.
It also calls for 43 miles of “new streets/street extensions,” plus 95 intersection improvements, 76 miles of street lighting, 41 new traffic signals, 239 “pedestrian/bike signal upgrades,” and 60 miles of shared-use paths (which are wider sidewalks).
Lawmakers Seek Faster Recovery Options as FEMA Helene Funds Face Delays
As Gov. Josh Stein’s top lieutenants for Hurricane Helene recovery sat before North Carolina lawmakers on Wednesday, they recited a familiar line: federal aid money was arriving far slower than the state was able to work.
Days before the storm’s one-year anniversary, the officials told the General Assembly that applications submitted for a major grant program had been pending before FEMA for months. And although the state stood up its homebuilding program in record time, federal regulations and processes meant that the first full reconstructed home likely would not be complete until January.
Those projections led lawmakers from both parties toward the same line of questioning: is there any way to make all of this go faster?
“Should we really, in the state, be in the housing business?” asked Rep. Brenden Jones, R-Columbus.
Rep. Zack Hawkins, D-Durham, wondered if “maybe the state will be better off being more invested in some of the state-funded solutions.” And Sen. Julie Mayfield, D-Buncombe, asked whether the state could effectively pre-empt reimbursement from the feds on a key grant program: “Is that the way it works? Or do they actually look at every (application)?”
The slow trickle of aid is familiar for major disaster recovery, a years-long process that takes billions of dollars. But the Trump administration’s operation of FEMA — requiring top-level sign-off on all spending and enforcing new layers of scrutiny on all aid — has slowed the flow of money even more to western North Carolina and frustrated state officials and lawmakers alike. North Carolina has received federal funds to cover 9% of total damages; Stein has requested funding to cover 48%.
Trump, as well as some Republican members of Congress, have on multiple occasions expressed a desire to move the bulk of disaster response operations and funding down to the state level. But for now, that responsibility remains with FEMA.
FEMA greenlit an additional $48 million for North Carolina on Monday, and $64.2 million the week prior. But Matt Calabria, who leads the governor’s western recovery office, said Wednesday that the state’s applications under a specific rebuilding grant program had been waiting for action by FEMA since February.
That chunk of money, called the Hazard Mitigation Grant Program, is designed to fund projects to prevent future disasters: relocating developments on floodplains, installing levees and floodwalls and retrofitting older buildings.
North Carolina could be eligible to receive up to $1.6 billion under the program, officials said Wednesday. But “no homes have been approved” for the program as of Wednesday, Calabria said.
Jonathan Krebs, Stein’s advisor for western North Carolina, told lawmakers the state couldn’t go ahead with projects under the program and hope for reimbursement from FEMA later. The most likely result from that, he said, would be rejection — though he admitted that would be better than the current limbo.
“We would love for them to say no, because then we could move onto other solutions,” Krebs said. “Right now, they’re saying nothing.”
Meanwhile, the state continues to trudge toward rebuilding homes under Renew NC, the state’s homebuilding operation that will use around $800 million in federal dollars.
State officials have kick-started casework on applicants despite still waiting on that federal money, using $120 million provided by state lawmakers. Renew NC has completed repairs on one home, and four others are now in the “pre-construction” phase, according to a state dashboard.
Stephanie McGarrah, who leads the Department of Commerce division overseeing the program, estimated that construction could be complete around January.
Jones, the House majority leader, had heard testimony earlier from Samaritan’s Purse — a Christian aid organization that has been rebuilding homes in western North Carolina separately from government programs. The group is currently building 30 mobile homes and 40 fully furnished homes in the region, vice president Luther Harrison said Wednesday. Jones wondered whether the state was better off leaning on groups like Harrison’s for a larger chunk of work.
North Carolina has received more than 3,000 applications to its Renew NC Single-Family Housing Program to help low- to moderate-income families who experienced significant storm damage.
“Do you think it would be wise for this body to start funding the outside groups … that can move way faster than state government?” Jones asked.
Those organizations fill valuable gaps on construction that “the federal government cannot fund,” Krebs responded. But many of the properties handled by non-government groups are often lower-cost ones; for more expensive projects, it’s a harder sell, he said.
“When that average value starts getting really high, I think that’s where state and federal solutions start having to step in,” Krebs said, referencing major bridges specifically.
Mini Budget
Unable to agree on a comprehensive two-year state budget, North Carolina lawmakers approved some spending priorities this week, including funding for disaster relief, economic development and construction projects.
The House passed the measure Tuesday afternoon without debate, one day after the Senate unanimously approved the same package. The bill goes to Gov. Josh Stein, who can approve it, veto it or let it become law without his signature.
The bill includes:
- $65 million for disaster relief, including Tropical Storm Chantal, which flooded parts of Chapel Hill and Orange County in early July. Of the money, $55 million is for the Department of Public Safety’s Division of Emergency Management for state match funds and $5.5 million for repairs to state highways damaged by Chantal.
- $35 million for public infrastructure improvements around Raleigh’s Lenovo Center, home of the National Hockey League’s Carolina Hurricanes and N.C. State University’s men’s basketball team. The Hurricanes are set to begin the first phase of a large-scale development around the arena to include parking structures, a new music venue and other retail spaces this winter.
- $51 million for economic development projects in Hertford County, including $40 million for a publicly owned dock and $11 million for construction of a public road. WRAL previously reported that a steel company is considering North Carolina for a major factory.
- $65 million in new funds for the North Carolina Global TransPark Authority as part of nearly $900 million in construction projects across the state, which were included in a previous financial package.
- A call for the sale of the chancellor’s residence at North Carolina Central University.
- $1.5 million over the next two years for the Raleigh-Durham Airport Authority to expand nonstop service to Dublin, Ireland. The airport authority announced last month that Aer Lingus would begin direct flights from RDU to Ireland next year.
- Allows the UNC System schools to receive accreditation from the Commission for Public Higher Education, which was established in June by six public university systems across the South – North Carolina, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, Tennessee and Texas.
Road Repairs
The federal government is sending another $1.15 billion to the N.C. Department of Transportation to help it rebuild roads and bridges in Western North Carolina damaged by the remnants of Hurricane Helene a year ago.
U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy announced Tuesday that the money will come from the Federal Highway Administration’s emergency relief program. The agency had already pledged $400 million to NCDOT from that fund for Helene reconstruction earlier this year.
“President Trump promised no North Carolinian would be left behind. Today’s announcement reflects that continued commitment to get America building again,” Duffy said in a written statement. “We will not rest until the communities devastated by Hurricane Helene are made whole again.”
The $1.15 billion announced Tuesday is the largest single grant from the FHWA’s emergency relief program in the program’s history, according to the agency. The announcement comes just days before the one-year anniversary of a storm that did more damage to roads and bridges in North Carolina than any other in history.
NCDOT estimates it will spend nearly $5 billion on repairs and reconstruction as a result of the storm. That’s more than five times the cost of all previous storms combined since 2016, which includes two hurricanes, Matthew and Florence, that devastated the eastern part of the state. NCDOT is counting on the federal government to cover about 80% of those costs.