Last Updated on October 6, 2024 4:22 pm
***10/6/24 3:00pm Message sent to all Town of Banner Elk Residents from Town Manager regarding the Town of Banner Elk proper.***
“This has been a long week for our community and as we transition from response to the storm to recovery from its impacts, I want to give you the following information.
We would ask that everyone continue to limit travel as essential. There are still hazardous conditions, and additional traffic hinders recovery efforts. Trees, powerlines, roads, bridges, and culverts are issues throughout the County and adjoining Counties.
We continue our assessment of all Town infrastructure. As we have assessed our critical infrastructure including water and sewer the damages are extensive. Our current priority is the repair and replacement of sewer lines that have been washed out. We will be working with Eggers Construction to begin the first phase of this repair this week. We have a company that will be viewing and cleaning all primary sewer lines that had breaks in them to ensure they are clear of storm debris. As the main sewer trunklines are ready, we will be able to begin restoring water pressure. The process of the water restoration will be slow. The water system also has been compromised by numerous line breaks. We must not only make these repairs but also ensure the system is clean. This will involve a yet to be determined amount of time with disinfection. We will provide more information on this as we approach that point. We will be pumping water at times to see that the wells are operating correctly, but this is not for the purpose of providing water to residents. If at any time you find that you have water even for a brief moment, it should not be considered safe to drink and at a minimum would require to be boiled. We will give notice to users at the point we are ready to provide drinking water.
While I cannot currently give a time frame on the work ahead, I can assure you that we are working with contractors, engineers, consultants and State agencies to restore service as safely and quickly as possible.
Many places in Town are still without power and Mountain Electric is giving a potential of 3-4 weeks for power to be restored.
The Historic Banner Elk School is being used as a resource center for the distribution of food, water and other necessities, including porta-john access. There have been opportunities for daily hot meals also. Information on this and other updates can be found at www.bannerelk.com and via the Visit Banner Elk Facebook group. This is the Banner Elk Tourism Development Authority website and group, and has become a quick way for updates when widespread infrastructure is down.
Temporary repairs to NC 184/Tynecastle Highway and 105 have been made. There are ways to safely travel out of the area. As hard as it is to say, I would encourage those who have other places they could stay to consider relocating there temporarily .
In closing I would like to thank, as I will do many times, all the businesses and volunteers that are helping in so many ways to hold our community tight.”
Rick Owen
Manager, Town of Banner Elk
