Buncombe County gets $36.9 million for Helene streambank repairs

Buncombe County secured $37,472,825 in federal recovery money to stabilize streambanks and eroding drainage corridors damaged by Helene, a move county leaders say is aimed at keeping roads, bridges, homes and utility lines from being undermined before the next hard rain.

The first round of U.S. Department of Agriculture Emergency Watershed Protection funding will support 207 approved project sites across the county. County staff and partners completed 492 site visits before narrowing the list, a screening process that showed just how widespread the damage remained after the storm pushed water, debris and runoff into already fragile channels.

Jennifer Harrison, Buncombe County’s agriculture and land resources director, said the work is meant to stop active failures, not rebuild every stream to its pre-storm condition. The repairs are designed to protect infrastructure at risk, including houses, bridges, utility poles, fiber optic cable and sewer lines. County officials say the broader streambank damage will still cost hundreds of millions of dollars to fully address.

Kevin Madsen, the county’s Helene recovery officer, described the grant as a step beyond debris removal and into bank restoration. The county says this first round does not cover all of the damage, and it is still seeking additional funding to carry out the full program. Officials expect the work to take two to five years because of the number and complexity of the sites, which means many residents will wait through more than one storm season before seeing the full benefit.

The county’s own stormwater program, adopted in 2006, was built around the idea that runoff control reduces erosion and flooding. That warning became more urgent after Helene, when Buncombe’s after-action review said roads and bridges were washed out, landslides damaged steep slopes and power and water systems failed across the county and western North Carolina.

The Emergency Watershed Protection program is meant to relieve imminent hazards to life and property caused by floods, fires, windstorms and other natural disasters. USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service says the program can pay up to 75% of eligible construction costs, and Buncombe County says the repairs will be engineered work provided at no cost to landowners. County officials also pointed to previous EWP projects after Tropical Storms Florence and Fred as precedent for using the federal program here.

The county’s recovery framework includes a Natural and Cultural Resources track focused on watersheds and streambanks, alongside a Helene Recovery Plan adopted by the Buncombe County Board of Commissioners on Nov. 18, 2025, that covers 114 projects across the county and its municipalities. For communities still living with unstable banks and eroded creek corridors, the new money marks a real shift, but only the first phase of a much larger rebuild.