Elevating structures, buying out businesses and homeowners, improving levees and building new detentions and embankments are some of the best ways to protect vulnerable towns like Lumberton and Princeville along the Lumber River in North Carolina. That’s the conclusion reached by a study released in May examining ways to help prevent future damage of the kind the area received following 2016’s Hurricane Matthew and other major storms.
Buyouts had barely begun before Hurricane Florence hit on Sept. 14, bringing more than 30 in. of rain in many places in North Carolina, exceeding the previous records set just two years ago and causing multiple rivers to flood. As of Sept. 25, there was major flooding in Lumberton and Fair Bluff, and waters were rising near Wilmington as they moved toward the Atlantic.