Fear and fearmongering in Western NC (11-25-2024--Hour1)

[00:00:04] What's going on? Thank you so much for listening to this podcast. It is heard live every day from noon to 3 on WBT Radio in Charlotte. And if you want exclusive content like invitations to events, the weekly live stream, my daily show prep with all the links, become a patron, go to thepetekalendershow.com. Make sure you hit the subscribe button, get every episode for free, right to your smartphone or tablet. And again, thank you so much for your support.

[00:00:28] So I saw this story the other day, a couple of days ago. And remember last week when we were going over the North Carolina Joint Legislative Commission on Governmental Operations Subcommittee on Hurricane Response and Recovery? It's very long. They call it GovOps for short because, yeah, it's a really long name for a committee.

[00:00:56] But remember the hearing that they were doing. Laura Hogshead was there, a guy by the name of Previous Gibson, a.k.a. Prior Gibson. That's his real name. Okay. But then Laura Hogshead is, she was out as the head of this disaster relief and recovery agency. It's called the North Carolina Office of Recovery and Resiliency or NCOR.

[00:01:23] Sometimes it goes by the name of Rebuild NC. And they've had a lot, a lot of problems dating back, you know, eight years back to Hurricane Matthew, Hurricane Florence.

[00:01:39] And now lawmakers are very worried that all of the mismanagement that the agency has suffered is going to negatively impact the relief efforts in the West.

[00:01:53] And so, you know, they grilled Hogshead and Gibson during this hearing. And then she was out as the agency leader. And as far as I can tell, we still don't know if she quit or if she was fired. Still don't know.

[00:02:13] But Mary Moore Field had a write-up at the legislature's website for this committee. And here's what she wrote up after the hearing.

[00:02:31] Leadership of NCOR, the agency, gave incomplete responses to pointed questions from members of the committee, the GovOps committee.

[00:02:43] On the agency's funding need, which her presentation and press reports inaccurately pegged at $221 million.

[00:02:52] Right. That was the upper end of the figure we saw is 264 was the high end.

[00:03:01] She said the work, Laura Hogshead, the now former NCOR director, said that worst case scenario is the $264 million number.

[00:03:10] If there's no attrition, meaning people fall out of the program for whatever reason, they just they go away or not able to use any other sources of funding.

[00:03:22] But here's what Mary Moore Field wrote for the legislature.

[00:03:25] That figure did not include any contingency for higher construction costs for any of the roughly 1400 homes still to be completed.

[00:03:38] From a spreadsheet NCOR provided to the subcommittee, building in a contingency would bring the remaining unmet need to $289 million on top of 30 million appropriated by the General Assembly back in October.

[00:03:58] So it's even worse than the worst case scenario because they didn't factor in any increase in construction costs, which we all know historically they always decline.

[00:04:11] Yes, that's the thing. Yeah. Construction costs always going down.

[00:04:16] Now, there was some good news.

[00:04:19] Asheville, after 52 days or 54 days, they finally got water back.

[00:04:26] I think it was a 52-day boil advisory that they were under.

[00:04:30] They did have running water, but you couldn't drink it.

[00:04:34] So you had to boil it all.

[00:04:37] Asheville Water Department lifted the boil water advisory for customers who rely on the North Fork Reservoir.

[00:04:45] That's the one located in Black Mountain, North Carolina.

[00:04:48] That includes about 160,000 people living in Asheville and other areas of Buncombe County as well as part of Henderson County.

[00:04:59] The water system was completely offline for the first three weeks after Hurricane Helene due to power outages and damage to the area's pipes and the water filtration system.

[00:05:11] Once the water was flowing again in mid-October, it was contaminated and full of sediment.

[00:05:19] Charlotte Ledger, in a piece by Lindsay Banks, reported that people were still advised to avoid using large volumes of water, like for filling bathtubs and pools.

[00:05:31] They were asked to not take long showers and do not water gardens.

[00:05:37] The North Fork Reservoir provides water for 80% of the city's water system, and the rest is supplied by the Mills River Water Plant, which is fully functional.

[00:05:47] And the Bee Tree Reservoir, that's located in Swannanoa, that one is still offline and reporting high levels of sentiment.

[00:06:00] Over at the Asheville Citizen Times newspaper, they have a story today.

[00:06:06] And by the way, there are still people living in tents.

[00:06:10] And I was up there this weekend, and it was brutal cold.

[00:06:19] Howling winds, snow, brutal.

[00:06:24] And people are living in tents on their properties because they are afraid.

[00:06:31] They're afraid.

[00:06:32] They're afraid of leaving the property because they're afraid of looters that are going to come steal all of their worldly possessions that, you know, were just strewn all about, damaged.

[00:06:42] And they've been trying to, you know, dig through inches or a couple feet of mud to try to recover what they can.

[00:06:50] But then what do you do with it if you don't have a structure, right?

[00:06:54] What do you do with the stuff that you are able to find and save?

[00:06:58] And so they don't want to leave their property.

[00:07:00] They're afraid that they're going to get robbed.

[00:07:05] And then people are also afraid that because they've seen social media posts about this sort of thing, they're afraid that the government or BlackRock or some other they is going to come in and steal their land.

[00:07:20] A land grab is underway.

[00:07:22] I have heard that as well.

[00:07:25] I said this, well, I guess it was probably two weeks ago.

[00:07:30] The thing about the new media world that we live in is that everybody can become a media reporter.

[00:07:41] And there is a responsibility that everybody now has as a media reporter.

[00:07:48] And we can make all the jokes we want about legacy media outlets and the unnamed sources and the irresponsibility that these outlets have engaged in in their reporting and all of that.

[00:08:00] Look, I do it, too.

[00:08:01] I'm very critical, as you know, very critical of legacy media outlets and the crap that they put out that's not verified or unverifiable.

[00:08:11] Fake news, disinformation, misinformation.

[00:08:14] They are all guilty.

[00:08:16] But that's not an excuse for everyone to be as equally guilty.

[00:08:23] Maybe you heard the story about the dead baby, right, that a baby died from the cold or something.

[00:08:28] Apparently, that was a rumor.

[00:08:30] That thing got started up back in October and then made the rounds again because it got so cold this weekend.

[00:08:37] So just think.

[00:08:41] And if you can verify, verify.

[00:08:43] If you're going to start sharing stuff that's unverifiable.

[00:08:49] Just know that that has an impact on people who see it and think that it's true.

[00:08:54] And that's how you end up with some people living in tents.

[00:08:57] Not all of them, but some people are out there because they're afraid that government is going to come and seize their land, which, by the way, you can't even build on.

[00:09:07] For a variety of reasons.

[00:09:13] And then you also have, we talked about this last week, the trailers, right?

[00:09:18] And I've seen the story making the rounds about the tiny homes.

[00:09:23] Okay.

[00:09:25] Let's get into that.

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[00:10:30] Email is Pete at thepetecalendorshow.com.

[00:10:33] Although it seems to be a little glitchy.

[00:10:36] The Outlook.

[00:10:37] Apparently there's some massive system-wide Microsoft Outlook and Teams problems.

[00:10:45] So just a heads up on that if I don't see the email.

[00:10:50] That would probably be why.

[00:10:52] Because you know me.

[00:10:53] I'm very good at checking all my emails.

[00:10:57] All right.

[00:10:58] So let's talk a little bit about the trailers.

[00:11:02] All the information I have about the FEMA trailers sitting abandoned, basically.

[00:11:09] Waiting to be deployed or something.

[00:11:11] Story we went over last week.

[00:11:14] There were a bunch of them in Hickory.

[00:11:16] Why are they still there?

[00:11:18] Don't know.

[00:11:19] Who's supposed to deliver them?

[00:11:20] Don't know.

[00:11:23] I have seen some information that it's a problem with the locals.

[00:11:31] That there are local zoning issues or permitting issues.

[00:11:35] That kind of thing.

[00:11:36] That might also be part of the problem with the tiny homes.

[00:11:40] I have not been able to confirm some of the reporting on the tiny homes.

[00:11:44] That there are these organizations.

[00:11:45] I believe the Amish are also caught up in some of this.

[00:11:51] Where they've come to town.

[00:11:52] They've constructed these tiny homes.

[00:11:54] And if you are unaware of what that means.

[00:11:57] It's basically a shed.

[00:11:58] All right.

[00:11:59] It's a wooden shed.

[00:12:01] And it requires, obviously, to have electric.

[00:12:08] And in some cases, I guess, maybe plumbing run to it or something.

[00:12:12] And so it just depends on the kind of build.

[00:12:14] But it's better than a tent, you know.

[00:12:18] And the problem here is that the local government regulations are all being applied.

[00:12:27] And so it's hampering the ability of people to deliver and hook up and then have others, you know, take up residence in these tiny homes.

[00:12:39] Again, I have not been able to confirm that there were the story making the rounds was 100 tiny homes.

[00:12:45] I don't know where that information came from.

[00:12:50] I saw one guy who's been spreading a lot of information.

[00:12:53] Not all of it true.

[00:12:55] I saw one guy post a link or a screenshot, I should say, of an organization.

[00:13:01] I went through to that organization's Facebook page.

[00:13:05] I started looking into some of their stuff.

[00:13:08] And they've got nothing about even building tiny homes.

[00:13:11] So I don't even know.

[00:13:14] I don't even know where that information originally came from.

[00:13:18] But there is some validity to government bureaucratic obstacles that are standing between, you know, getting people out of tents and into tiny homes, at least temporarily.

[00:13:34] These are not, you know, these are not long-term solutions.

[00:13:39] And I've said this from the very beginning.

[00:13:41] You know, what is the problem that you are facing right now?

[00:13:45] What is it?

[00:13:46] And, you know, in the immediate aftermath of the storm, it was what?

[00:13:50] Rescuing people and water.

[00:13:53] People need water.

[00:13:55] Drinkable water.

[00:13:56] You will die if you do not get water after three days.

[00:14:00] You need water.

[00:14:04] So those were the initial obstacles.

[00:14:06] Well, they ended up getting, you know, tons and tons literally of water.

[00:14:10] Then it becomes what?

[00:14:11] Food.

[00:14:12] Shelter, right?

[00:14:13] You just that's the way you kind of have to address these things at sort of the large scale.

[00:14:20] We've covered the shortcomings of FEMA.

[00:14:22] We've covered the hearing that what Deanna Criswell, the head of FEMA, went before Congress and was getting grilled about some of the response efforts that they were doing and some of their trailers that were not being delivered.

[00:14:41] Like who's supposed to deliver these things?

[00:14:43] And then there's a fellow named Ken Mundy.

[00:14:46] And he's a 58 year old third shift worker as an environmental manager at the VA hospital.

[00:14:54] And he was working the night of the storm that swept away all of his his house, his shed, his cars, like everything.

[00:15:02] So all he had was what he was at work with.

[00:15:05] Seven weeks now after Helene, Mundy said that he finds himself trapped in a confusing web of bureaucracy and contradiction.

[00:15:13] This is the Asheville Citizen Times story on the matter.

[00:15:16] The Federal Emergency Management Agency cut him a good size check to rebuild his home, he said.

[00:15:23] But he said the county planning department won't give him permission to rebuild.

[00:15:29] He's only allowed to spend the money on repairing his property.

[00:15:34] But he said he can't get a straight answer as to whether he's allowed to actually do any repairs.

[00:15:40] Mundy said he submitted an application for a building permit.

[00:15:44] Then he waited 20 days for any response from the county, which eventually told him that his home was a total loss.

[00:15:51] Why does this matter?

[00:15:54] Obviously, it matters for him and for anybody else going through a similar situation.

[00:15:58] But here's the key is that if you if you have to rebuild versus build new.

[00:16:07] Right.

[00:16:08] If you if you can.

[00:16:09] Well, let me say renovate versus brand new.

[00:16:13] New construction versus renovation.

[00:16:16] If you are going in and you're trying to renovate a damaged structure,

[00:16:22] then the code and the bureaucracy treats you differently than if you are building from scratch.

[00:16:28] And what the locals are saying is that you have to rebuild from scratch.

[00:16:33] And that means now you have to meet new code, the new building code.

[00:16:39] It's sort of like, you know, if you want to do some work around your house and as long as you don't open up any walls, you're fine.

[00:16:46] But as soon as you open up some walls, now you got to get permits.

[00:16:49] Right. You start messing with old electrical rewiring stuff.

[00:16:54] You know, if you open up the walls to do it, now you're going to have to bring everything up to code.

[00:16:59] And this jams up a lot of generally historic buildings that that aren't designated as historical landmarks or anything like that.

[00:17:08] But if you've got and I had a house like this where if you go in there and you start messing with stuff,

[00:17:13] now you've got to bring everything up to the modern code.

[00:17:16] You can't just repair it.

[00:17:18] You've got to build it new.

[00:17:19] And that's what this guy is now running into, that he has to rebuild new.

[00:17:23] But the money he got from FEMA doesn't pay for it all.

[00:17:27] All right. Hey, real quick.

[00:17:28] If you would like to get your product or service in front of about 10,000 people multiple times a day,

[00:17:34] send me an email at Pete at the Pete Calendar Show dot com and ask me about advertising.

[00:17:39] It's super affordable.

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[00:17:48] Send me a message.

[00:17:49] Pete at the Pete Calendar Show dot com.

[00:17:51] And I can show you how it works.

[00:17:52] Run the numbers with you.

[00:17:53] Again, that's Pete at the Pete Calendar Show dot com.

[00:17:57] Samaritan's Purse is another good organization.

[00:18:00] But hearts with hands dot org is a disaster relief organization, nonprofit.

[00:18:04] They are located in Swannanoa, which was really hard hit by Hurricane Helene.

[00:18:12] They're collecting, you know, blankets and coats and sleeping bags and buddy heaters.

[00:18:17] They're called B-U-D-D-Y buddy heaters.

[00:18:21] Hearts with hands dot org.

[00:18:24] I have personal knowledge of their organization, the people that have run it.

[00:18:30] And so highly recommend them if you are looking for a good organization to support, to help the people.

[00:18:37] Now, two months after Hurricane Helene.

[00:18:42] There is a.

[00:18:44] There is an old saying in journalism, nothing kills a great story like the other side of it.

[00:18:52] And in the world of social media postings, you never need the other side of it.

[00:18:59] And the more eyeballs and interactions, engagement, they call it in social media, the more engagement your post gets.

[00:19:10] The more money you will make.

[00:19:12] A lot of people aren't aware of this, but there are monetization programs on social media.

[00:19:19] And if you get a lot of followers and you can get a lot of them to engage with your posts, either through liking them or sharing them or commenting on them.

[00:19:30] Then the.

[00:19:33] The social media company will pay you as a content creator.

[00:19:39] And.

[00:19:40] And.

[00:19:41] This creates an incentive.

[00:19:43] For people that start getting these checks.

[00:19:46] I have never received a check.

[00:19:49] I would never count on that as income.

[00:19:52] The problem is that.

[00:19:53] Once you start relying on that as income, obviously, is that now you have to keep that engagement level high in order to keep your revenue stream.

[00:20:03] And.

[00:20:05] Maybe.

[00:20:06] You let some stuff go.

[00:20:08] And by the way, this exact pressure is on legacy media outlets.

[00:20:12] On newsrooms.

[00:20:14] Right.

[00:20:15] They want to be the first one to break a story.

[00:20:17] And so.

[00:20:17] Okay, fine.

[00:20:18] We'll just rush ahead and publish the story, even though we may not have gotten it completely buttoned down.

[00:20:23] You know.

[00:20:24] Didn't completely verify it, but we'll rush to print in order to get the story out there first.

[00:20:28] So we keep our numbers high.

[00:20:32] So.

[00:20:34] I don't say that to chastise anybody specifically.

[00:20:37] I'm not attacking anybody specifically.

[00:20:39] I'm just offering it as a warning because we are all media.

[00:20:45] I know.

[00:20:46] Elon Musk made a comment about this, I think, over the weekend.

[00:20:50] I swear he's reading my tweets.

[00:20:52] I like there's no other explanation.

[00:20:54] Or maybe he's plugged into like some sort of a AI thing that's just mainlining.

[00:21:02] All tweets right into his brain.

[00:21:04] So he sees it all and hears it all.

[00:21:07] And yeah, that's a little far fetched.

[00:21:12] Oh, and then that prompted some guy, Jim Van de Hive, the founder of Axios.

[00:21:17] He did a speech at the National Press Club.

[00:21:21] He was like ripping Elon Musk.

[00:21:23] No, everyone is not media.

[00:21:26] We are different.

[00:21:27] We are better and all this other stuff.

[00:21:30] Yeah.

[00:21:31] The reason why nobody is reading your stuff so much anymore is because you have abused them and the trust that they had in you.

[00:21:38] And the problem is that people gravitate towards sources that confirm their priors, their biases, their beliefs and opinions.

[00:21:52] That's why I always say get your news from multiple sources.

[00:21:55] Anyway, back to the Asheville Citizen Times story that did this interview with, what's his first name?

[00:22:03] Ken Mundy.

[00:22:06] And keep this in mind.

[00:22:08] Nothing kills a great story like the other side of it.

[00:22:10] So Ken Mundy says that he got a check from FEMA.

[00:22:14] He's trying to rebuild.

[00:22:16] He submitted an application for a building permit.

[00:22:19] Then he waited 20 days for a response from the county, which eventually told him that his home was a total loss.

[00:22:27] Okay.

[00:22:29] So frustrated with waiting.

[00:22:33] He went ahead and started building.

[00:22:35] And he acknowledges that he did so when he shouldn't have.

[00:22:39] He spent $13,000 from the FEMA money that he got.

[00:22:47] Nathan Pennington is the Buncombe County Planning Director.

[00:22:51] And he challenged Mundy's account.

[00:22:53] He said his team has spoken with Ken Mundy and explained to him that national regulations prevent them from issuing a permit to rebuild his home.

[00:23:04] Because he lives in what's called a special flood hazard area.

[00:23:09] Those federal regulations only allow him to spend up to 50 percent of the market value of his home on repairs.

[00:23:20] On repairs.

[00:23:21] That's the key.

[00:23:22] So he's got a market value appraisal.

[00:23:25] He then gets the check from FEMA.

[00:23:28] But because federal regulation says the house is totaled as per the county, they say it's totaled.

[00:23:35] And so now he can't use but 50 percent of the money to rebuild.

[00:23:39] And Pennington with the county says that communities have to follow the National Flood Insurance Program regulations or we risk our membership in the flood program.

[00:23:52] Mundy said that he understands the requirement but that his home has been valued far below its fair market value.

[00:24:00] And that means the amount he can spend on repairs is also severely limited.

[00:24:05] So it's a catch-22.

[00:24:07] Indeed it is.

[00:24:08] It might even be a catch-23 or 24 or whatever.

[00:24:11] I'm not sure.

[00:24:12] Maybe it's just double.

[00:24:13] Catch-44.

[00:24:14] Because when people get their properties revaluated by the county, they don't like it when the value goes up.

[00:24:23] Because that means they have to pay more property taxes, right?

[00:24:27] So people complain when the revals go up.

[00:24:31] They complain that it's just too high.

[00:24:33] My property is not worth that amount of money.

[00:24:35] But if the property is lost and now they want the check, now they want the high val, right?

[00:24:41] They want a high revaluation.

[00:24:42] I think it was, saw a story out of Yancey County.

[00:24:45] I think it was Burnsville maybe.

[00:24:47] They had just done, they had finished their reval two days before the storm.

[00:24:52] Two days.

[00:24:53] So everybody got re-evaluated.

[00:24:56] And then that means they're going to get more money from FEMA than they otherwise would have.

[00:25:03] The other side of this is, you know, because it's very easy to just say, well, just give them the money.

[00:25:08] Okay.

[00:25:09] But what about the scammers?

[00:25:11] What about people that are going to take advantage of this?

[00:25:13] And this gets also into another topic I was discussing this weekend with Christy, actually, was that there are people that have set up GoFundMes.

[00:25:23] A GoFundMe account.

[00:25:24] And FEMA apparently says if you have a GoFundMe that's raising money for your home replacement, FEMA's not going to give you that money then.

[00:25:34] Now, FEMA has said that they're not, like, they're there as a sort of fill in the gap.

[00:25:41] Right?

[00:25:41] They're going to give you some money if you don't have insurance or insurance doesn't cover it.

[00:25:44] But think about it.

[00:25:46] If you got a house that was totaled and it's, let's say it was a $400,000 house, and you end up raising a million dollars on your GoFundMe, should FEMA cut you a check for $400,000 to replace the house?

[00:26:02] Right?

[00:26:02] What about if FEMA gives you the check, you then keep raising money, and now you're telling people that it's for the house replacement or whatever?

[00:26:10] And, yeah, I mean, this is a very difficult thing.

[00:26:14] There are a lot of facets to this.

[00:26:16] Again, I'm not chastising people specifically for sharing things or saying things or whatever.

[00:26:21] I'm just advocating.

[00:26:23] I'm urging to just be a little skeptical and seek the other side of the story.

[00:26:31] So the Citizen Times says that this homeowner, Ken Mundy, has two options.

[00:26:39] He can apply for FEMA's Hazard Mitigation Grant Program, which is administered by, not FEMA, but NCOR.

[00:26:49] Ah!

[00:26:51] He's got to work with Rebuild NC.

[00:26:53] He's got to work with the state agency.

[00:26:55] The program provides money for homeowners to rebuild their homes up to current flood control standards, which in Mundy's case would mean that he would have to raise his home higher.

[00:27:10] He'd have to build it up on a platform above the banks of the Swan and O'erre River.

[00:27:16] And the other option is for him and others who are in his similar position to try to get a new valuation on the home, one that would be higher.

[00:27:30] And then that would raise the amount of money that he is allowed to spend fixing it up.

[00:27:36] As for Mundy's claims that he can't get a straight answer from the planning department at Buncombe County, the leader of that department, Mr. Pennington, said he's sympathetic.

[00:27:48] He says nobody in the region right now is in a situation where they're not overwhelmed.

[00:27:53] In other words, everybody is overwhelmed.

[00:27:55] Every agency is.

[00:27:57] The people that work in these departments and in these agencies, they've lost everything, right?

[00:28:03] They're navigating this stuff, too.

[00:28:04] They don't have, you know, homes to go back to either.

[00:28:08] They're living in hotel rooms and stuff.

[00:28:10] He said they are prioritizing everything Helene-related.

[00:28:13] And he says, I think we've done a pretty good job getting to folks, having conversations and explaining what their options are.

[00:28:26] WLOS-TV, based in Asheville.

[00:28:31] They had a story talking about the application for these hazard, the FEMA hazard mitigation program.

[00:28:41] They can have their homes replaced or they can have their flood-damaged property bought by the government.

[00:28:49] This has prompted accusations of land grab, land grab.

[00:28:55] Now, Mecklenburg County has been doing this for decades, which is, if you have a, was it the, remember the old Doral apartments?

[00:29:03] Remember those things?

[00:29:04] They flooded every time it drizzled.

[00:29:07] These things were, it was terrible.

[00:29:09] They were in the news all the time.

[00:29:10] Everybody knew, all the newsrooms knew that as soon as it starts raining, head over to the Doral apartments because it's going to get flooded.

[00:29:17] And the fire department's going to show up with the Swift Water Rescue Team and they're going to start, you know, hauling babies out of apartments.

[00:29:24] And it's great video.

[00:29:25] And eventually, those apartment buildings were purchased with taxpayer funds, they were purchased and demolished, and now there's nothing there.

[00:29:37] It's just grassland, right?

[00:29:39] That's the point.

[00:29:41] Because they flood so often, it doesn't make any sense to keep rebuilding in that floodplain.

[00:29:46] So the hazard mitigation program is designed to reduce future damages and losses after disasters.

[00:29:57] The program is federally funded, but it is managed by the state.

[00:30:04] Applications are open.

[00:30:07] And you've got three options.

[00:30:11] Acquisition.

[00:30:12] The purchase of a home and property.

[00:30:14] This is all voluntary.

[00:30:15] The project moves people out of the 100-year floodplain.

[00:30:20] Not all of it.

[00:30:21] Not the 1,000-year or the 500-year.

[00:30:24] The 100-year floodplain.

[00:30:26] So it then leaves that property in its natural state in perpetuity.

[00:30:32] So this idea that there is a land grab going on, there's nothing else going to be built there.

[00:30:37] You sell it.

[00:30:38] If you sell it to the government to be part of a floodplain, nothing gets built.

[00:30:43] It requires structures to be removed.

[00:30:47] A licensed appraiser helps determine the value based on the tax card and the surrounding homes.

[00:30:53] The land is then given to the county for a park or green space.

[00:30:58] And again, just leave it in its natural state.

[00:31:01] They say park.

[00:31:02] But stuff that's not going to get damaged every time it floods.

[00:31:07] You can also elevate it.

[00:31:10] You can raise the house.

[00:31:12] This is one of the other options as part of the hazard mitigation grant.

[00:31:16] The act of raising a home in the 100-year floodplain to a minimum of two feet above the base flood elevation.

[00:31:23] Or mitigation construction.

[00:31:25] This act of raising a home in the 100-year floodplain to a minimum of two feet above the flood elevation.

[00:31:32] It includes demolition, site grading, preparation, and new construction.

[00:31:38] And homeowners can withdraw that application at any time.

[00:31:42] So those are the options.

[00:31:44] Again, not to say that any single incident or example hasn't occurred.

[00:31:50] It's just to say verify before spreading stories that might not be the full story.

[00:31:57] All right.

[00:31:57] That'll do it for this episode.

[00:31:59] Thank you so much for listening.

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[00:32:14] Again, thank you so much for listening.

[00:32:16] And don't break anything while I'm gone.