B.J. Stiens climbed the stairs into her house that has wobbled precariously for nine months on wooden cribbing 10 feet off the ground. She looked out at the still-calm Core Sound 100 yards away and worried about the storm grinding up the coast in her direction.
If we get a wall of water like we did in Hurricane Florence, it’ll knock the cribbing out from under the house, and it’ll all be gone, she said. And there is nothing we can do to prevent it.
The Stienses are an extreme example of a common scenario for people across Carteret County, where Hurricane Florence in September 2018 damaged hundreds of homes, many of which have not yet been repaired as Hurricane Dorian approaches.
The Sienses bought the house, in the fishing community of Smyrna, several years ago, relocating from Alamance County to what they hoped would be a less stressful life.
Then along came Florence, with its 7-foot storm surge that swamped the Stienses’ nearly 4-acre property. Their house, which sat then on a 4-foot-high foundation, got only 6 inches of water inside. But because the house had never flooded before, the Stienses had no flood insurance.
In order to receive repair money from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the couple agreed to elevate the house so that future storms couldn’t flood it again.
They hired a man who promised he could lift the structure, build the new, higher foundation and set the house back down in seven to 10 days for $15,000. The couple paid half the money up front from their FEMA payout. They moved into a travel trailer that strangers donated and parked in the yard.
The contractor brought a crew out at the end of October and on Nov. 1, the Stiens house was up on temporary supports.
He never finished the job.