After what Haywood County has been through does anyone want to think about the hurricane season from June 1 to November 30? After watching my office being destroyed in 2004 along with most of Downtown Canton, I sure don’t want to be reminded. But we need to be.

UPDATED April 29: NCORR has received over the program budget in interested applicants for the Homeowners Assistance Program. NCORR is pausing the application to ensure current applicants were eligible and submitted all required documentation.

The N.C. Office of Recovery and Resiliency (NCORR) is supporting Haywood County in the April 22 launch of its Homeownership Assistance Program (HAP) to assist homebuyers displaced by Tropical Storm Fred or first-time homebuyers that are income qualified. 

The Town of Canton, still beset with myriad issues related to both natural and human-caused disasters, took an unprecedented step by shuffling one administrator into a newly created position and promoting another — saving taxpayer money and making history at the same time.

Although concerns about Canton’s post-mill wastewater treatment remain front and center, the town’s recovery from devastating flooding in 2021 continues to move forward with a project budget meant to shore up the town’s aging water infrastructure. 

Architects selected by Canton’s governing board to plan renovations on a pair of buildings purchased to replace those damaged in deadly 2021 flooding presented recommendations and cost estimates to officials last week — a major milestone that keeps the town moving on the road to recovery with an eye on the future. 

An annual waters summit hosted by a pair of North Carolina congressmen brought together local, state and federal administrators, experts and elected officials who spent a lot of time looking back at the sad recent legacy of flood control, mitigation and recovery efforts in the state — hampered by funding anxiety, ensnarled in bureaucracy, stressed by the impact of growing populations on aging infrastructure and impeded by way too many government agencies on way too many levels that are all somehow siloed yet still tangled up like fallen trees in a raging river. 

The Town of Canton has taken a major step toward long-term flood recovery with an economic development project at a downtown parcel that could soon serve as the capstone to a broader resiliency effort all along the Park Street corridor. 

More than two years after deadly flooding killed six people and caused hundreds of millions of dollars in damages to public and private property from Bethel to Cruso to Canton to Clyde, Haywood County will purchase an early warning siren system to keep residents better informed for when — not if — it happens again. 

With less than two years gone since Tropical Storm Fred destroyed lives and property  along the Pigeon River in Haywood County, flood resiliency remains top of mind for local leaders.

The Town of Canton has made another big move toward recovery from Tropical Storm Fred by accepting advanced planning documents from the architects who will help build, rehab or restore municipal buildings damaged almost two years ago.