WNCSOS: August 2010

Monday, August 30, 2010

Haywood County Mountain Real Estate: East Canton Mudslide

Haywood County Mountain Real Estate: Hazardous-Land Disclosure

Before signing an offer to purchase Haywood County mountain real estate, interested parties should consider that Haywood County is one of twenty-one Western North Carolina counties classified landslide-hazardous by federal officials.

Haywood County Real Estate Landslide Risk Map

Haywood County building sites are classified unstable because of the region's geologic features and water-reactive soils. When heavy rains are forecast, the National Weather Service issues Western North Carolina bulletins advising that landslides and slope failures can be expected.

Unpublished 2005 Haywood County Stability Index Hazard Map.
Risk models show that 49% of Haywood County land is unstable.

Since landslide insurance is not available for Western North Carolina real property, purchasers should condition their contracts on professional engineering studies.

Canton, North Carolina Mudslide

The Mountaineer reported in their August 29, 2008 edition that an east Canton home had been damaged by a mudslide.

In the archived article, "Welcome rain brings woes, too," Greg Shuping, director of Haywood County Emergency Management Services told Staff writer, Beth Pleming that, "Due to heavy rains, the mountain behind the home slid off and broke down a retaining wall, sending water and mud sliding up against the house. It was a pretty dangerous situation, but again nobody got hurt. The homeowners (who were in the home at the time) self-evacuated."

Haywood County Mountain Real Estate: McAloon Landslide

Photographs of the Donin home on 93 Wildcat Run Road before and after the January 7, 2009 landslide— Asheville Citizen-Times

On January 7, 2009 a section of Ed and Pamela McAloons' Wild Acres lot slipped down its steep embankment and crushed the house below. The property owners, Bruce and Lorraine Donin, survived the swift-moving landslide.

This is the second tragedy in the Wild Acres subdivision. Trish Jones was killed in December 2003 when a mountain slope collapsed, destroying her home. The Jones’ landslide was caused by saturated soils from a fractured water main. Marc Pruett, head of the Haywood County erosion control department, said that the January 2009 McAloon slope failure was triggered by rain on highly unstable soils.

Mr. Pruett told Vicki Hyatt, editor of The Mountaineer, that there have been landslides above and below the Donin home site as well as across the top of the mountain in the Villages of Plott Creek development. The slope failures were triggered when rain soaked unstable soils known as Tuckasegee-Cullasaja complex, ( TvE). The Wild Acres mountain subdivision along with others in Maggie Valley share this highly reactive, landslide-prone soil composition.

The McAloon Home Site

When the McAloons purchased their lot they received no warning that the land for their home site was unstable.

Prior to building their home, the couple hired a private engineering firm to evaluate slope stability. The engineering report by Alpha Environmental Sciences, Inc. found that two on-site slopes were problematic and subject to failure.

During various construction phases from 2006 thru 2007 the McAloons were advised by county erosion control personnel that, “We have concerns about the slope just past your home. It appears to be exhibiting signs of failure. Please have you plan designer, or another qualified person have a look at it.” At the time of the final erosion control inspection in January 2007 county officials noted that the McAloons had not repaired the slope. They wrote another recommendation advising the property owners to seek professional advice. The McAloon soil erosion control report was closed and forgotten until January 7, 2009.

It is not known whether the Donins took action against the McAloons for their property loss. Haywood County required the McAloons to repair their unstable slope.

Haywood County Mountain Real Estate: Moody Landslide

Unpublished Haywood County Stability Index Hazard Map.
Risk models show that 49% of Haywood County land is unstable.

Moody Landslide Maggie Valley, NC

Photo: Moody landslide—Asheville Citizen-Times

No one is certain but authorities guess that on or around January 7, 2009 rain caused a portion of a Maggie Valley mountain lot to slip. The owners of the Bear Creek Road residence, Walter and Joyce Moody, were advised that the costs to repair the failed slope would be $400,000.

Walter Moody told the Asheville Citizen-Times:

Everything was done according to code. In fact, it exceeded code in many areas. Building inspectors signed off on everything, confirming that it met code. (Parts of the foundation) are anchored in bedrock. So even if the front edge of the home failed, the back portion that’s on rock would still stand. Also, the soil in front of the home doesn’t show the same degree of softness, and surveyors have looked for cracks and found none ... Is the house safe? Yes. Is it sellable? Not with the slide.

When we built this house we put our savings into it. But today, what we know is that it wouldn't have made any difference if I put my money in the stock market or I put it into this house because I am going to wind up with basically the same thing—and that's nothing.

Am I blaming this on anybody? No. But I have a concern. I have a concern we are going to see more of this, and there is nothing that you or I can do to stop it until it occurs.

Sunday, August 29, 2010

Ghost Town in the Sky: Landslide Still "An Imminent Threat"—August 2010

Ghost Town in the Sky Landslide February 2010

On February 5, 2010 sections of a mountain slope owned and maintained by Ghost Town Partners, LLC gave way. This construction-related mudslide, sideswiped homes and severely damaged Rich Cove Road.

Photos of Ghost Town in the Sky landslide damage—Asheville Citizen-Times
Flyover video provided by WSPA News

The Smoky Mountain News recently reported that the Ghost Town in the Sky landslide threat has not been resolved.

Landslide repair down to the wire as competing plans play out

Smoky Mountain News— Becky Johnson August 3, 2010

The clock is ticking for stabilization work on a landslide in Maggie Valley to get underway or a federal grant to pay for the work will be lost.

A $1.3 million grant to recontour the precarious mountainside near Ghost Town in the Sky amusement park was secured months ago from the Emergency Watershed Protection Program. But developing engineering plans, securing environmental permits and navigating the various state and federal agencies overseeing pieces of the work has taken months. The Emergency Watershed program has now granted a third — and final — extension for the stabilization work and set a deadline of Oct. 16.

“We need to be under construction by then,” said Town Manager Tim Barth. “They indicated this would be the last extension.”

The town is ready to go out to bid on the stabilization work, but Ghost Town does not like the design and instead has suggested an alternate plan. Engineering for the alternate plan is not yet finished, however.

Barth said the town cannot wait beyond Aug. 22 to go out to bid, or it will jeopardize getting construction underway by mid-October and in turn jeopardize the grant.

Without the grant, there is no source of money Barth knows of to stabilize the mountain. The town can’t afford the work, and the county has said it won’t put up money to fix a landslide on private property for fear of setting a bad precedent. Ghost Town, meanwhile, has been in bankruptcy for a year and a half and its ability to pay for the work is unclear.

The engineering firm, Bunnell-Lammons, has been waiting on some basic schematics from Ghost Town for several weeks in order to draw up a detailed engineering design for the alternate design. It will take two months for the project to be bid out, have a contractor selected, and for work to get underway.

“That’s why we are saying Ghost Town needs to really get it to them quickly,” Barth said.

Ghost Town CEO Steve Shiver said that there is “no problem” meeting the deadline to go out to bid. Ghost Town is delivering schematics on the alternate plan to the engineering firm this week. Shiver blames the town for plowing ahead with a plan that was “unacceptable” to Ghost Town.

“They composed the plan without any input from any property owners,” Shiver said. “If Mr. Barth would have engaged Ghost Town in the repair planning, we would already be under construction. I am frustrated that we are even put in this position by the city.”

The emergency federal grant requires support of the property owner. But Shiver said he would not agree to the first plan that was developed.

“Absolutely not,” Shiver said. Shiver said he told town officials so at the beginning of the process.

“He wasted two months worth of time. Why I have no idea why,” Shiver said. “The [engineering firm] was directed to come up with the plan absent any input from us.”

If the issue of dueling plans isn’t solved, it is unclear whether the town can compel Ghost Town to agree to the stabilization work. A state statute does allow towns to intervene if there is a threat to public safety.

“A city shall have authority to summarily remove, abate, or remedy everything in the city limits, or within one mile thereof, that is dangerous or prejudicial to the public health or public safety,” according to G.S. 160A-193.

The slide qualifies as a threat to public safety for the dozens of people living below the mountainside who would be in the path of another slide, according to N.C. Geologist Rick Wooten, who has assessed the destabilized mountainside.

“In my professional judgment, unstable slopes remain in the vicinity of the slope failure, and these unstable slopes present an imminent threat to public safety,” Wooten wrote in a letter to the Town of Maggie Valley following the slide.

Kim Hibbard, general counsel for the N.C. League of Municipalities, said the statute is most commonly used to force property owners to clean up junk cars, keep their lawns mowed or seal off old swimming pools.

But, “It is a fairly broadly written statute,” said Hibbard. Typically, the town would get a court order giving it permission to take charge of the public safety threat.

If the statute was used, the work could be billed to the property owner, in this case, Ghost Town. Although Ghost Town is in bankruptcy, the work carried out under the statute would have priority status, carrying the same weight as back property taxes, and would be the first thing to get paid off if the amusement park is either sold or liquidated.

Shiver said there are flaws in the original plan proffered by the town. For a start, it was unclear if there was enough grant money to cover the cost of the stabilization.

“There were too many variables in that plan. It had an open-ended checkbook,” Shiver said.

In addition, the original plan would claim a small flat area tucked into the side of the mountain that Shiver says is critical to the amusement park’s future plans. As the only level spot on an otherwise extremely steep slope, it’s one of the few places Ghost Town could add attractions in the future.

Haywood County Mountain Real Estate: Ghost Town in the Sky Landslide

Unpublished Haywood County Stability Index Hazard Map.
Risk models show that 49% of Haywood County land is unstable.

Since landslide insurance is not available for Western North Carolina real property, purchasers should condition their contracts on professional engineering studies. A note of caution: specific home site stability evaluations do nothing to protect against up-slope hazardous-land events.

Ghost Town in the Sky Landslide Maggie Valley, NC

On February 5, 2010 sections of a mountain slope owned and maintained by Ghost Town Partners, LLC gave way. This construction-related mudslide, sideswiped homes and severely damaged Rich Cove Road.

Photos of Ghost Town in the Sky landslide damage—Asheville Citizen-Times
Flyover video provided by WSPA News

As the Smoky Mountain News recently reported, the Ghost Town in the Sky landslide threat has not been resolved.

Landslide repair down to the wire as competing plans play out

Smoky Mountain News— Becky Johnson August 3, 2010

The clock is ticking for stabilization work on a landslide in Maggie Valley to get underway or a federal grant to pay for the work will be lost.

A $1.3 million grant to recontour the precarious mountainside near Ghost Town in the Sky amusement park was secured months ago from the Emergency Watershed Protection Program. But developing engineering plans, securing environmental permits and navigating the various state and federal agencies overseeing pieces of the work has taken months. The Emergency Watershed program has now granted a third — and final — extension for the stabilization work and set a deadline of Oct. 16.

“We need to be under construction by then,” said Town Manager Tim Barth. “They indicated this would be the last extension.”

The town is ready to go out to bid on the stabilization work, but Ghost Town does not like the design and instead has suggested an alternate plan. Engineering for the alternate plan is not yet finished, however.

Barth said the town cannot wait beyond Aug. 22 to go out to bid, or it will jeopardize getting construction underway by mid-October and in turn jeopardize the grant.

Without the grant, there is no source of money Barth knows of to stabilize the mountain. The town can’t afford the work, and the county has said it won’t put up money to fix a landslide on private property for fear of setting a bad precedent.
Ghost Town, meanwhile, has been in bankruptcy for a year and a half and its ability to pay for the work is unclear.

The engineering firm, Bunnell-Lammons, has been waiting on some basic schematics from Ghost Town for several weeks in order to draw up a detailed engineering design for the alternate design. It will take two months for the project to be bid out, have a contractor selected, and for work to get underway.

“That’s why we are saying Ghost Town needs to really get it to them quickly,” Barth said.

Ghost Town CEO Steve Shiver said that there is “no problem” meeting the deadline to go out to bid. Ghost Town is delivering schematics on the alternate plan to the engineering firm this week. Shiver blames the town for plowing ahead with a plan that was “unacceptable” to Ghost Town.

“They composed the plan without any input from any property owners,” Shiver said. “If Mr. Barth would have engaged Ghost Town in the repair planning, we would already be under construction. I am frustrated that we are even put in this position by the city.”

The emergency federal grant requires support of the property owner. But Shiver said he would not agree to the first plan that was developed.

“Absolutely not,” Shiver said. Shiver said he told town officials so at the beginning of the process.

“He wasted two months worth of time. Why I have no idea why,” Shiver said. “The [engineering firm] was directed to come up with the plan absent any input from us.”

If the issue of dueling plans isn’t solved, it is unclear whether the town can compel Ghost Town to agree to the stabilization work. A state statute does allow towns to intervene if there is a threat to public safety.

“A city shall have authority to summarily remove, abate, or remedy everything in the city limits, or within one mile thereof, that is dangerous or prejudicial to the public health or public safety,” according to G.S. 160A-193.

The slide qualifies as a threat to public safety for the dozens of people living below the mountainside who would be in the path of another slide, according to N.C. Geologist Rick Wooten, who has assessed the destabilized mountainside.

“In my professional judgment, unstable slopes remain in the vicinity of the slope failure, and these unstable slopes present an imminent threat to public safety,” Wooten wrote in a letter to the Town of Maggie Valley following the slide.

Kim Hibbard, general counsel for the N.C. League of Municipalities, said the statute is most commonly used to force property owners to clean up junk cars, keep their lawns mowed or seal off old swimming pools.

But, “It is a fairly broadly written statute,” said Hibbard. Typically, the town would get a court order giving it permission to take charge of the public safety threat.

If the statute was used, the work could be billed to the property owner, in this case, Ghost Town. Although Ghost Town is in bankruptcy, the work carried out under the statute would have priority status, carrying the same weight as back property taxes, and would be the first thing to get paid off if the amusement park is either sold or liquidated.

Shiver said there are flaws in the original plan proffered by the town. For a start, it was unclear if there was enough grant money to cover the cost of the stabilization.

“There were too many variables in that plan. It had an open-ended checkbook,” Shiver said.

In addition, the original plan would claim a small flat area tucked into the side of the mountain that Shiver says is critical to the amusement park’s future plans. As the only level spot on an otherwise extremely steep slope, it’s one of the few places Ghost Town could add attractions in the future.

Wednesday, August 25, 2010

Haywood County Real Estate: Campbell Mountain Estates Landslide

Haywood County Mountain Real Estate: Hazardous-Land Disclosure

Currently Realtors and developers are not obliged to disclose that Haywood County is one of twenty-one Western North Carolina counties designated landslide-hazardous by Federal Emergency Management Agency officials.

Haywood County Landslide Map

Unpublished 2005 Haywood County Stability Index Hazard Map.
Risk models show that 49% of Haywood County land is unstable.

Campbell Mountain Estates Landslide Maggie Valley, North Carolina

This reprinted landslide report illustrates Haywood County's unstable-land conditions.

"Ordinances debated as mountains move"— Jeff Schmerker
The Mountaineer, September 9/2/05

A rule might prevent slides, planners say

A homesite on a mountainside above Jonathan Valley Elementary could become the poster child for the potentially deadly consequences of unregulated hillside development in Haywood County.

In building a driveway and preparing a homesite on Late September Way in Campbell Mountain Estates, a developer modified an existing 40-foot vertical cut into a mountainside. But before the project could be finished, the mountain moved.

In the yard of a home at 31 January Heights, which is adjacent to and directly above the slope work, 2-inch wide fissures appeared like veins in the landscaping just off the home's back porch.

The slide appears to have been stopped-for now-thanks to quick work and an innovative engineering technique that injects a concrete-like substance into the hillside using iron piping. The hillside was then draped in fabric grids and coated in a geotextile material.

But the 40-foot cut, and the landslide it could have caused, spotlights clearly the effects of building homes where nature didn't intend them to be built.

The homesite where the work is occurring is owned by Billy Brede, a developer who planned to live there and use it as a showcase idea home for the development. Brede is also a member of the Maggie Valley planning board.

While not all land cuts end in landslide, the soil type in this hillside, called meta-sedimentary, was the catalyst in this failure, said planners and scientists. The soil is flecked with mica, which can act like ball bearings, said Bill Yarborough, an elected board member for the Haywood County Soil and Water Conservation District. While the soil type may have contributed to the failure, the actual culprit is mica's presence in weathered bedrock, said Rick Wooten, the senior geologist for geohazards with the North Carolina Geologic Survey in Asheville.

"You can take your hammer and knock it and see it is pretty crumbly," Wooten said. "In hindsight with the slope exposed, you can see that there are planes of weakness in the rock which contributed to the slope failure. It is not always something you can predict early on and may not be apparent until the slope is cut."

No rules broken.

The cut into the mountainside in Campbell Mountain broke no rules or ordinances, said outgoing Maggie Valley Planner Kevin Byrd, because there were no rules to break. The county and the towns of Clyde and Canton have no hillside development ordinances. Waynesville does, though their rules may not have prevented this particular problem from occurring.

The Waynesville ordinance requires larger lots on high elevation properties and engineering plans on slope cuts, as well as engineering devices for slope retention. "Slope failures are not covered," Byrd said. "You can still encounter bad soils."

Haywood County will be one step closer toward having a hillside development ordinance this fall once a detailed five-foot contour topographic map of the county is completed, said Board of Commissioners Chairman Mark Swanger.

"Technology has always been part of the problem," Swanger said.

By the end of this month Swanger expects the county will have that detailed topo map in hand and he plans to direct the county planning board to make an ordinance recommendation.

But slope failures are something that come with the territory.

"The problem we have is that you have what appears to be a slope that is fine to be built on, and then in the right weather conditions there is topsoil on top of bedrock that slides off," he said. "That's indigenous to our area."

"The new maps, he said, will give county officials the ability to identify all slopes, even those just 10 feet tall by their steepness, Swanger said.

"This is the state of the art-it's the gold standard," he said. "Once that tool is out there, we want the planning department to bring us the options,"

Brede, who is the project manager of Campbell Mountain Estates and also the president of the community's home owners association, said the mountain cut was made a decade or more ago by previous land users. He was attempting to terrace the slope and then install integrated wall blocks when the failure occurred.

Developer acted quickly.

After the slide, which occurred on June 22, Brede immediately met with a geologist to see what could be done to prevent further collapse.

The geotextile infusion process, which uses a series of fused pipes, some drilled 60 feet into the hillside, filled cavities in the hillside that formed during the condensation of the earth. Some of that pumped geotextile material actually surfaced around the home on January Heights, having travelled several dozen feet through the ground to get there.

Before working on it, Brede said he preformed preliminary tests on the slope that failed to show presence of the voids. Complete geotechnical tests, he said are prohibitively expensive in residential developments.

"On a residential project," Brede said, "nobody can do that many test borings."

Until rules are in place to regulate slopeside development there will probably be more failures like this in the future, said Yarborough. The vast majority of the land being developed in Haywood County, he said, is slopeside, not flat.

"This is a constant battle, and it is getting worse," Yarborough said. "It's like the cut the legs out from the mountain, and we keep having more and more problems."

Tip of iceberg.

Yarborough said it will take a county-wide effort to put rules in place that will help prevent failures from occurring.

Campbell Mountain is just one of several in Maggie Valley having slope failure problems: roads in Horseshoe Cove, for example, are cracking in half as one side slides down the mountain. A contractor estimated the roads there, like Bridle Drive and Creekside Drive would take $5 million to fix, with no guarantee that the fix would work.

Brede added that there have been several small slope failures, including one that failed even after being supported, in Campbell Mountain. He said that rooty plants are being used in addition to support structures like walls to stabilize the slopes.

Erosion control officials in the county have no say on how slopes are developed, said Yarborough and neither does the planning department.

"There was no desk to cross," he said. "Nobody has responsibility, but somebody should. This is crazy. It should have never happened to start with."

Possible ordinances which could be adopted by the county, said Yarborough, might factor variables including slope steepness, local rainfall data, soil types, the presence of bedrock, drainage, and development density. It could identify low, medium and high-risk areas.

The plan could be directed by the topo maps or by state-issued soil surveys and recommend building techniques or preventive measures, like retaining walls. "With soil surveys," he said, "normally you know beforehand what you are getting in to." The surveys, of course, don't tell developers how soils will behave but they could be used to create a master plan of suitable development standards.

Wooten said that while landslides are more common in steep terrain, an extensive geological or geotechnical investigation likely could have prevented the problem. But such an investigation could make development prohibitively expensive.

Study started

Haywood County Planner Kris Boyd said the planning department has a subcommittee which has just begun to look into slope development standards. There are no recommendations yet from that subcommittee, said Boyd.

The state appropriated funds to counties as part of the hurricane relief act to study hillside development and to study stormwater control. Macon, sites of the Peeks Creek disaster, is first in line for the study.

The board of commissioners will ultimately be the ones to decide to adopt a slope development ordinance, and how tough it should be, Boyd said.

"It will be a topic for discussion," he said. "We have had a talk of some type of guidelines for a period of time now."

Boyd did note, however, that Buncombe County recently had an easy adoption of slope development standards.

"At some level, and in some way, I think they would be beneficial," Boyd said. "But I am not sure what that level is."

"We could go too far, be too restrictive, or we could be nonrestrictive," he said. "We have to find some medium, and we have to find a balance, to promote this as well as not stop growth totally."

For Yarborough, finding that balance means saving lives. Two years ago a woman died when a slope collapsed on her home flattening it. He does not want to see that happen again.

"Maggie Valley dodged the bullet with the last hurricane," said Yarborough. "It could have been unbelievable, but there was not much rain here. This is the disaster I've been talking about for 20 years and if they keep doing this somebody is going to be killed."

Brede said he didn't think any slopeside development rules would have prevented the slide from occurring.

"There is nothing, no ordinance or any rule that would have affected that situation," he said. "That was a potential hazard waiting to happen...Nothing I did ever indicated that it would happen, it just happened. I had no intention to harm the home owner above me."

Tuesday, August 24, 2010

Haywood County Mountain Real Estate: Wild Acres Landslides

Wild Acres Landslide Photos Maggie Valley, NC

Upper left photo: DOT engineer above the Jones' landslide at the intersection of Dogwood Road and Wildcat Run in Maggie Valley- December 12, 2003—The Enterprise-Mountaineer.

Upper right photo: Jones' rescue scene-Locust Drive-December 11, 2003 —NCGS

Next photo: Bruce & Lorraine Donins' home on 93 Wildcat Run prior to landslide.

Last photo: what used to be the Donins' home- January 2009—Asheville Citizen-Times

Appearances are Deceiving

Anyone driving through the Wild Acres neighborhood today, would not suspect that unstable-land conditions were responsible for loss of life and property destruction. All evidence of the Jones and Donin landslides has been removed. Yet, as this Haywood County Stability Index Hazard Map reveals, the cause of these tragedies still exists.

Haywood County Landslide Map

Unpublished Haywood County Stability Index Hazard Map.
Risk models show that 49% of Haywood County land is unstable.

Haywood County Mountain Real Estate: Hazardous-Land Disclosure

Currently Realtors and developers are not obliged to disclose that Haywood County is one of twenty-one Western North Carolina counties designated landslide-hazardous by Federal Emergency Management Agency officials.

Landslide Insurance

Those engaged in the business of hazardous-land residential development do not warn their clients that they will be self-insuring for expected landslide property damage. The insurance industry has evaluated the costs of insuring homes on unstable ground and as a consequence will not provide coverage for earth movement-related losses.

Haywood County Landslides 2003

The following archived article provides a realistic assessment of the costs of owning Haywood County mountain real estate.

"Landslides rise with development"— The Enterprise-Mountaineer
Darren Miller— December 12, 2003

Landslides, debris flows, mudslides, mudflows, and debris avalanches are all synonymous terms used to describe what has become an all too (common) geological occurrence in Haywood County.

After searching throughout the better part of Thursday for a woman trapped in her Maggie Valley home demolished by a landslide, Maggie Valley Fire Chief Tim Carver acknowledged the increased frequency of landslides in the area, pointing out that this was the first time one resulted in the loss of a home and the loss of a life.

As more mountainside property is carved out to build homes, the risk of landslides increases exponentially.

In the span of eight months, three major landslides have caused significant property damage, and now a death in Haywood County.

After several days of rain in May, Sidney and Delores Hitt of the Big Branch section of Crabtree were forced to leave their home when the driveway collapsed, exposing septic tiles. The Hitts, who are retired and live on a fixed income, faced upwards of $50,000 in repairs.

And only three weeks ago, Bob and Jan Roberts awoke to a landslide on their three-tiered, steeply sloped front yard. As dry underground springs filled to capacity and burst after a year of heavy rainfall, the 100-foot-wide and 50-foot-long section loosened, eventually giving way and resulting in the landslide. The Roberts now face paying at least $20,000 to correctly repair the property.

Marc Pruett, an erosion control specialist for Haywood County, said rushing to close a real estate deal often results in critical and potentially dangerous oversights.

Pruett said people building or buying homes on steep terrain should take full advantage of available resources, such as testing soil samples for compactibility and bonding strength, researching publications like “Mountain Home Guide” and seeking advice from the Haywood Soil and Water Conservation District.

As Noel Menger looked down at her neighbor’s devastation with horror Thursday, she recalled some of the scary incidents she has faced in her two years at her Maggie Valley home.

“We put a 60-foot-high wall with three tiers behind the house,” she said, “but on the side of the house there is a steep hill and rocks seem to filter down every day.”

Menger said big boulders avalanched down the slope, barricading the door, after she had lived in the house for only a month.

Steve Williams, a Maggie Valley native, said something needs to be done about the landslide problem and hopes it won’t take another situation like the one his longtime friends, Edward and Patricia Jones experienced Thursday morning.

“When I heard there was a landslide in Maggie Valley, I almost assumed it might be my house," said Williams, a resident of the Horseshoe Cove community where landslides have become increasingly more common.

“You have to have some sort of rules,” he said, adding that higher engineering standards should be enforced as more and more developments are built. “What goes on above you affects the people below when you build on a mountain.”

According to the U. S. Geological Survey, landslides occur in every state and U. S. territory, with the Appalachian Mountains, the Rocky Mountains and the Pacific Coast ranges suffering from severe landslide problems.

While realizing that the physical cause of landslides cannot be removed, the USGS suggests that geological investigations, good engineering practices and effective enforcement of land-use management regulations can reduce landslide hazards.

Friday, August 20, 2010

Haywood County Mountain Real Estate: Horseshoe Cove Subdivision Landslides

Haywood County, North Carolina Landslide Map

Unpublished Haywood County Stability Index Hazard Map.
Risk models show that 49% of Haywood County land is unstable.

Horseshoe Cove Subdivision Maggie Valley, North Carolina

On May 6, 2003 landslides covered and destabilized portions of five roads in the Horseshoe Cove Subdivision.

What likely would have remained a private dispute became public when the developer refused to repair the damaged roads within his subdivision.

Don Condren— Developer of Horseshoe Cove — Subdivision Street Disclosure Statement

At the time of sale of Horseshoe Cove lots Mr. Condren provided his clients with a form titled Disclosure of Private Roadway. By signing these documents, Horseshoe Cove property owners relieved Mr. Condren of all future financial obligations. These forms are currently titled Subdivision Street Disclosure Statements and are required for all private road planned communities.

North Carolina General Statutes Section 136-102.6

If the street is designated by the developer and seller as a private street, the developer and seller shall include in the disclosure statement an explanation of the consequences and responsibility as to the maintenance of a private street, and shall fully and accurately disclose the party or parties upon whom responsibility for construction and maintenance of such street or streets shall rest, and shall further disclose that the street or streets will not be constructed to minimum standards, sufficient to allow their inclusion on the State highway system for maintenance.

Assessing Horseshoe Cove Landslide Damage

Darell Bowen, a Horseshoe Cove property owner, summarized the situation in a June 19, 2003 letter:

It is very clear to me that every one of us in Horseshoe Cove is affected by the current situation. Our property values have declined substantially, if we could sell at all. Those of you that are renting are being affected by loss of rental income. At this point, none of us can rent or sell without first disclosing this situation to any potential tenants or buyers. Currently there is a potential danger to every one of our homes. Some areas are more dangerous than others. First of all, there are two spots on Bridle Drive, one on Stirrup and one on Creekside where the road could completely wash out very easily. If the one spot on Bridle goes, so goes the sewer, which will affect all of us. Secondly, there are some boulders placed up on Stirrup that are going to come loose at some point. When they do there is the potential to damage property and injure people down on Bridle and or Creekside. Lastly, we have to get the erosion under control or the whole mountain is going to continue to deteriorate.

After the engineering report is done, we may need to consider making some of these repairs now because I don’t think they can wait very long. As for the erosion, I observed many problems on individual lots and I think each of you need to deal with these problems as quickly as possible because they are making the overall situation worse. These problems on your individual lots will not be part of any action we take regarding the common areas. Please address them individually as soon as you can.

Litigation

Facing extraordinary repairs the Horseshoe Cove property owners unanimously elected on May 31, 2003, to retain the Asheville law firm of McGuire, Wood and Bissette, P.A., to investigate their “possible causes of action against the developer of their community, Don Condren, Doncon, Inc., and possibly others, for faulty design, workmanship, and other failures which have led to road erosion, improper drainage, sewer problems and landslides in the Horseshoe Cove Area.”

The Horseshoe Cove road engineering report was given to Mary Euler, the property owners’ attorney, on November 6, 2003. Engineers from McGill Associates estimated construction cost repairs to range from $3,175,771 to $5,537,021.

Shortly after this report, Ms. Euler advised her clients of two facts: Litigation would be expensive, $50,000, and the process would be a long-term commitment. She also warned the property owners that Mr. Condren would likely declare bankruptcy if presented with a lawsuit.

Horseshoe Cove residents declined to pursue litigation: they formed the Horseshoe Cove Homeowners’ Association and assessed members $7,000 to cover the costs of the most urgent repairs ($300,000).

Most of the landslide-prevention measures recommended by McGill Associates were not undertaken and their findings were not made public.

Donin Landslide— Maggie Valley, North Carolina— January 7, 2009

The Asheville Citizen-Times responded to the Donin tragedy by sponsoring a series of articles on Western North Carolina landslides. After reviewing geologic data and county incident reports, the newspaper's investigative team found that the region's unstable land conditions pose significant threats. Since 2003 Western North Carolina landslides have killed six homeowners, damaged or destroyed numerous homes and private subdivision roads.

Those who are risk-adverse should consider the fact that landslide insurance is not purchasable.

WNCSOS

WNCSOS was established in 2006 to publicize Western North Carolina’s hazardous-land conditions. Pam Williams, a Maggie Valley landslide victim, provided the documents for this report. Copies of the McGill Report, Bowen letter, legal correspondence and landslide photographs are posted.

Monday, August 16, 2010

Haywood County Mountain Real Estate: The Cascades Subdivision Landslide

Haywood County, North Carolina Landslide Map

Unpublished Haywood County Stability Index Hazard Map.
Risk models show that 49% of Haywood County land is unstable.

Haywood County, North Carolina Real Estate: Hazardous-Land Disclosure

Realtors are currently not obliged to disclose that Haywood County is one of twenty-one Western North Carolina counties designated landslide-hazardous by Federal Emergency Management Agency officials.

As the following article details, the decision to buy mountain real estate should be carefully considered. Although not discussed in The Mountaineer report, the financial risks are significant: Landslide insurance is not purchasable and homeowners' associations are responsible for its private roads.

The Cascades Subdivision Landslide

Photo 1-View looking up the track of the August 31, 2006 embankment failure-debris flow from the development road near lot 107.
Photo 2-View looking downslope at the debris deposit and damage to lot 107
Photo 3-View of cracks in embankment extending northeast from the head scarp of the August 31, 2006 embankment failure-debris flow
Photos compliments of the North Carolina Geological Survey

"A Whopper of a Slide"—Jeff Schmerker
The Mountaineer September 12, 2006

Breathtaking. That's the word Marc Pruett, the county's erosion control supervisor, is using to describe a landslide which occurred late last Thursday on a steep mountainside high above Maggie Valley.

Several orders of magnitude larger than anything in recent memory, the slide, in an under-construction 700 acre subdivision tentatively called The Cascades, might be one of the largest slides ever to occur in the county as a result of development activity.

The slide measures 125 across and runs for about 1,300 linear feet, or about 650 vertical feet.

The development is owned by Maurice Wilder of Clearwater, Fla. Wilder, who flew over the site on Friday, may have been the first to actually find it, said James Guy, the project manager. Though the slide was not witnessed, workers at the site say it occurred after very heavy rain on Thursday which dumped more than 6 inches in about 12 hours. The slide occurred at the temporary end of Summit Road and took out soil, rocks, tons of mud, leaving a massive debris pile far down the mountain where the slope lessens a bit.

"If people could come around with me for a week they'd be surprised to see what's going on in these mountains," Pruett said on a tour of the slide. "This one is a stunner."

Though unusual for its size, the slide is also unusual for another reason, Pruett said: the crews blasting the rock and digging into the hillsides here, led by contractor Dennis Franklin, followed all the rules when it comes to slope development. Franklin holds a license for doing excavation work.

"Dennis is the finest grading contractor I've run across," Pruett said.

Despite that, the slide sheds light on the issues behind the county's ongoing effort to enact a landslide development ordinance.

Though it might not have prevented the slide, measures in the ordinance would have offered an extra level of protection on the mountainside. An on-site engineer or soil tester might have alerted workers that the slope was susceptible to failure, Pruett said.

"It might not have prevented it," Pruett said. "The slope development ordinance is not a fix-all, but it does offer a higher level of standards."

Normally, said Franklin, the development's roads are resting on bedrock, but this particular piece of road was constructed wider than normal to serve as a temporary parking spot for equipment. It was this area that began tumbling down the hillside, gathering momentum and ended up taking out hundreds of trees plus tons of dirt. Franklin, who brought the matter to the attention of county officials, have already seeded the slope with grass seed and erected silt barrier fences. Pruett said he might not have found out about the slide otherwise since there were no houses in its path and no residents in the area being developed.

An engineer who analyzed the slide for one of the development's property owners said the construction of the road bed at the starting zone was the cause of the disaster.

Maggie Valley engineer Kevin Alford said the road bed in that areas was made from crushed rock which was formed from blasting.

"The upper road was built out of shot material (from) where they had to blast the roadway in there," he said. "It got too much water in it and got too heavy." The sliding material acted like a bulldozer, said Alford, scouring the slope of almost all vegetation. "It wiped out a path down to the bedrock," he said. "It was like an elliptical-shaped bulldozer. It's an amazing thing when you see that kind of material go down the mountain."

The material that came to a rest at the foot of the slope was a "molten mess glob of liquefied soil, rock, trees, brush, everything."

Alford said better planning when it came to building roads might have prevented the problem.

"When you get up in the mountains and start building roads, there are good ways to build roads and bad ways to build roads," he said. "In a situation like that I think it would have been reasonable to do subterranean work to find out what was there. When you have a large amount of uncompacted rock fill that gets a lot of water in it, you have the potential for slope failures. There is still more material up there, so it could happen again."

Haywood County Mountain Real Estate: Contracts are Deceiving

Haywood County, NC Landslide Hazard Map

Unpublished Haywood County Stability Index Hazard Map.
Risk models show that 49% of Haywood County land is unstable.

Haywood County Hazardous-Land Disclosure

Realtors are currently not obliged to disclose that Haywood County is one of twenty-one Western North Carolina counties designated landslide-hazardous by Federal Emergency Management Agency officials.

As the following article details, the decision to buy Haywood County mountain real estate should be carefully considered. Landslide insurance is not purchasable.

"Disappearing Haywood"— Jeff Schmerker,
The Enterprise-Mountaineer, October 31, 2005.

County to craft ordinance aimed at halting erosion

If you ever get the chance to see Marc Pruett’s erosion control disaster slide show by all means, watch it.

Pruett’s diorama is a hundred or so photos that depict in shocking detail the worst of Haywood County residential development. There are photos of roads splintered into tiny bits as the slopes underneath them give way. There are images of streams running dark brown, choked with silt from unmitigated erosion. There are pictures of cut slopes so steep they have been reduced to constantly avalanching gullies.

And then there are the homes. Pruett has pictures of houses being slapped on one side by landslides and falling off deliriously steep slopes on the other, homes whose yards are riddled with gaping crevasses as the land pulls away beneath them, homes whose foundations have cracked, some of the cracks so big daylight shines through them, and pictures of homes literally being torn apart as the unstable ground they sit on gives way. Pruett, the county’s erosion control program director, who showed his slides Tuesday night to a gathering of county officials and environmental workers, said in nearly every case the culprit was the same: shoddy building practices in unsafe terrain.

The Haywood County Board of Commissioners is looking into a new set of standards to combat the effects, both personal and environmental, of slope development.

Commissioners have said they would like to see recommendations on a plan in January. Pruett told that group that in many cases the erosion nightmares are the result of poor education, or bad decision-making, in areas saddled by steep slopes and bad soils. The goal in writing such a plan, he said, would not be to hinder development, just to ease erosion.

“My personal opinion is that we do not need to look at mandating densities of development or prohibiting development,” Pruett said after the meeting. “We need to allow development wherever people want to build, but get them to build a little bit better.

Traditionally, said Commissioner Mary Ann Enloe, some builders have resisted similar ordinances.

So the challenge, she added, is finding a solution that protects mountainsides and residents, while allowing home and road building.

“A lot of the time, folks from the flat country don’t realize the challenge in purchasing mountain land,” Enloe said. But the workshop’s big turnout shows that the community is taking the issue seriously. “It is a heavy responsibility to meet that challenge of protecting our hillsides and mountainsides while not prohibiting people from being about to build a house and build a road into that house,” she said. “The roads to houses are sometimes as much of a problem as anything else.”

Pruett said any recommendations would likely focus on development practices in areas where the soils are known to be challenging for development. But setting standards for development in concert with soil mapping is complicated, he warned. Crafting a workable solution will require input from a variety of sources, and Pruett said he hopes the public weighs in.

“I feel like unsuspecting buyers need to be protected to some extent,” Pruett said. “We should probably look at the long term-effects (of erosion) and find reasonable regulations for the greater good. There is a considerable amount of construction work and land disturbing being undertaken in areas where we do not know enough about the soil.” Pat Tilley, who is leading the planning department’s subcommittee which is investigating ordinances, said she commends the county commission for taking the issue on. Hopefully, she said, the municipalities will adopt rules identical to the county’s so guidelines are uniform.

“What we need is protection for property owners,” she said. “After the house is built, the developer and the builder are gone.”

Sunday, August 15, 2010

Maggie Valley Club & Resort: Are Landslides a Concern?

Haywood County, NC Mountain Real Estate

Haywood County is one of twenty-one Western North Carolina counties designated landslide-hazardous by Federal Emergency Management Agency officials.

Unpublished Haywood County Stability Index Hazard Map.
Risk models show that 49% of Haywood County land is unstable.

Maggie Valley Club & Resort Real Estate

The Maggie Valley Club & Resort is currently advertising and selling mountain home sites without disclosure of Haywood County hazardous-land conditions.

Those considering Maggie Valley Club & Resort real estate should proceed with caution: landslide insurance is not purchasable.

Haywood County, NC Real Estate Landslide Report 2003

Unpublished Haywood County Stability Index Hazard Map.
Risk models show that 49% of Haywood County land is unstable.

Haywood County Mountain Real Estate

The decision to buy Haywood County mountain real estate should be carefully considered because … "landslides and slope failures are expected events during periods of heavy rainfall."

Realtors are currently not required to disclose on property listings and in sales contracts that Haywood County is one of twenty-one Western North Carolina counties declared landslide-hazardous by Federal Emergency Management Agency officials.

To illustrate the point, here is a reprint of a now-archived news report concerning the consequence of hazardous-land development.

The Enterprise-Mountaineer
May 21, 2003

“Little protection in case of mud slides”— Charles White

With news reports of a house that had to be evacuated after heavy rains damaged the driveway, people are left to wonder how the houses were allowed to be built on steep slopes in the first place.

This has been a growing concern for many Haywood County residents since the heavy rains in early May.

The prospect of having the ground literally crumble beneath their feet has raised several people’s eyebrows and suggested a number of deeper questions about county land management and homeowner responsibility.

Marc Pruett with the Haywood County Department of Erosion and Sedimentation regrets that as the current county policy is set up, it is often a case of buyer beware when it comes to purchasing mountain property for a building site.

Pruett said that some surrounding communities employ slope ordinances and storm water run-off standards to good effect, but without zoning in Haywood County, these types of safeguards cannot be enforced.

“Unfortunately at this point in time, we are reactive instead of proactive in our approach to this problem,” Pruett said.

Finding out first hand

The driveway collapse at a house on Paradise Circle in the Crabtree community is an example of building on the side of a mountain. After days of heavy rain, Sidney and Delores Hitt had to leave their home until repairs can be made.

The Hitts learned a tough lesson when they found out their insurance company would not pay for damage as a result of the rain and subsequent driveway collapse. Insurance companies maintain a policy of not issuing any protection for homeowners against mud slides.

The bad news did not end there. The Hitts then found themselves facing another problem as neighbors who lived above them on the private road could not safely drive to their homes unless repairs were made to the road where it met the Hitts’ driveway. Now possible litigation may follow as the group of homeowners are considering action against the county, the Hitts’ insurance company or the Hitts.

Another similar landslide controversy took place in the Horseshoe Cove community in Maggie Valley when mud slides blocked and damaged privately maintained roads.

Pam Williams, who lives in the Horseshoe Cove community said she is upset with the placement of the draining system, which uses culverts. She said that as a result of the poor drainage, a small river slices through her backyard every time it rains.

Now, with roads damaged and unsafe for car travel, Williams wants to know who is responsible to pay for the damages. She has consulted an attorney to look over the closing contract on her home to determine who is culpable.

Williams said she thinks the developer, Don Condren, could be responsible.

Condren agreed the road needed repairs, but disagreed with who would have to pay for those repairs.

“It is up to the individual homeowners to make those repairs, “ Condren said.

Condren said that he paid for the development of the community eight years ago, and that he no longer owns any of the property.

Condren said if the Horseshoe Community had a homeowners’ association, it would be easier for the residents to make repairs.

But Williams said she does not think each homeowner should pick up the tab for damages she thinks were caused by poor planning. She organized a meeting with fellow homeowners and will have a lawyer available to answer questions about the Creekside controversy at the Maggie Valley Town Hall May 31.

Condren has dealt with homeowners’ grievances with stormwater drainage in the past. In the early 1990s, Condren settled out of court with a homeowners’ association when another of his developments further down a mountain flooded, and homeowners complained that the drainage system Condren built was inadequate.

Potential growth thwart

One question raised about land stability is to what extent is the county responsible for notifying homeowners of the soundness of a particular building site.

Kris Boyd, the director of planning with the Haywood County Planning Department, said the answer is not so simple and relies heavily on dollars and cents.

Boyd said the county was responsible for issuing a building permit and a septic permit, but they were not in the business of hiring an environmental engineer, issuing slope-density requirements or performing core-drillings.

However, Boyd did say the county could protect a homeowner’s property if ordinances were passed.

“Water is a powerful thing, and it will find a natural path,” Boyd said.

The problem with taking land-planning measures is that they would require zoning and a land-use ordinance to be passed by county commissioners.

“That sort of thing is very expensive and any official land-planning ordinances might prohibit development, Boyd said.

There has been some discussion of a possible land-use study, but no proposal for a comprehensive zoning plan, which would include the inspections of environmental engineers or slope-density measurements, Boyd said.

Boyd said that he felt the county’s role in terms of new housing should be minimal.

“The home buyer has to take some kind of personal responsibility,” Boyd said.

Many homeowners feel like they are being left in the dark when it comes to the security and stability of their lots.

“The ordinary homeowner doesn’t understand what needs to be done ( to ensure the lot is stable),” Williams said.

For Williams, the lack of information has led to growing frustration, and with legal action looming on the horizon, she wants better answers.

Postscript

Since May 2003 Haywood County landslides have caused loss of life, multi-million dollar property damage and closure of I-40.

Horseshoe Cove property owners paid $300,000 to repair their privately-owned subdivision roads.

WNCSOS

Western North Carolina Landslides