you are welcomed to come over any time and work on the Grassy Branch Restoration Project. So far my son and I have removed four out of six 12′ sections of the 42″ culvert that crosses the property. Right now, I am concentrating on what to do with the daylighted section. The city reviewed the project under a grant source for dealing with severe erosion, and I may have them back over for another look since the bank needs to be stabilized before my driveway slides off. I would also be interested in talking with any of your readers who have landscape design experience–I would love to have a plan to go in with native plants once all is said and done.

It is interesting that you mentioned the Big Branch project as I have a little to do with that one too. The house on Mapleridge was purchased by the City of Raleigh using funding from the FEMA Hazard Mitigation Grant Program which I manage for the State of North Carolina.

The property was acquired under the auspices of the HMGP because analysis showed that it faced a considerable risk of repetitive flooding leading to environmental degradation, continued disaster response and recovery costs and claims against the National Flood Insurance Program. After the property was acquired at fair market value, programmatic regulations required the city to demolish the structure and hold the underlying land as public open space in perpetuity. Acceptable uses of acquired properties include open space, recreation, or wetlands management. Following Hurricane Fran, the City of Raleigh acquired and demolished 31 structures within the 100-year floodplains of Crabtree Creek, Walnut Creek,Bushy Branch, Perry Creek and Big Branch. In addition, five structures were raised off of their foundations and placed on new taller foundations that placed them out of the reach of flood waters.

Statewide, over 7,000 flood hazard structures have been acquired in the last 10 years under various state and federal mitigation funding programs with the principle goal of restoring the floodplains to their natural flood storage function and capacity. Folks who are interested in the various programs are welcomed to give me a call at the NC Division of Emergency Management Hazard Mitigation Section (919) 715-8000 x 277, or shoot me an email at jcrew@ncem.org.