Like pouring water from a bathtub into a tea cup. That’s how Gaston County Emergency Management Director Scott Hunter described the impact of an inflow of floodwater from Lake Norman to the much smaller Mountain Island Lake, which is situated directly downstream along the Catawba River.
The two man-made water bodies are a part of the 11-lake Catawba-Wateree Hydro Project managed by Duke Energy. The lakes in that system provide 789 megawatts of electricity through hydroelectric dams, and their water is also used as cooling water for Duke Energy’s fossil and nuclear power plants, as well as drinking water for more than 2 million people.
Cowan’s Ford Dam at Lake Norman, the largest of the 11 lakes, is not designed for spillover. Therefore, surplus water must be released via floodgates, which has occasionally engulfed downstream communities in feet of water.
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Prior to Tropical Storm Helene, it last happened in 2019, when three days of heavy rainfall prompted Duke Energy to open the floodgates in what was then the largest amount of water ever released from Lake Norman, causing more than 100 homes along Mountain Island Lake to flood.
By all accounts, the flooding event as a result of Hurricane Helene was worse.
On the evening of Thursday, Sept. 26, the water levels at Mountain Island Lake exceeded its designated ‘maximum’ lake level of 100 feet. The water level peaked at 107.9 feet just before midnight on Sept. 28.
“We’ve never seen that lake come up that high and that fast,” Lucia-Riverbend Fire Department Deputy Chief Robert Westbrook told Carolina Public Press.
“I was just mesmerized by going down and looking, and (there’s) a whole house sitting in a body of water.”
The flood-prone communities of Mt. Holly, Lucia and Riverbend Township faced the brunt of the storm damage in Gaston County. A county-wide damage assessment showed that six structures were destroyed and 105 suffered major damage.
An additional 89 homes were flooded across the Catawba River in Mecklenburg County, including four that were swept completely off their foundations and destroyed. Much of that damage was concentrated in the neighborhood that comprises Riverside Drive, Lake Drive and Riverhaven Drive.
Charlotte-Mecklenburg Emergency Management spokesperson Paige Grande said many of those homes had already been raised off their foundations, but it still wasn’t enough to avoid costly damage. Homeowners and renters in Gaston County and Mecklenburg County are eligible for FEMA assistance. A FEMA Disaster Recovery Center opened in Charlotte on Oct. 21 to help Helene survivors apply for aid.
Duke Energy Communications Director Jennifer Garber told CPP that the company began communicating with local governments in potential flood zones days before the storm on Tuesday, Sept. 24. Emergency management officials from Mecklenburg and Gaston counties confirmed they were in communication with Duke Energy in the days preceding Helene.
Duke began moving water through the system days in advance in an attempt to ensure lake levels across the Catawba-Wateree chain were at or below target levels.
A later notice sent from Duke Energy to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, which licenses and regulates hydropower projects, shows that the water level on Mountain Island Lake on Sept. 25 was more than a foot above the target level of 96 feet. However, it was dropped down to just under 96 feet early on Sept. 26.
Duke’s filing with FERC on Oct. 2 claimed that dropping the water levels any lower wouldn’t have prevented the flood.
“Due to the size of Mountain Island Lake, one of the smallest lakes on the Catawba-Wateree River, and the historic amount of rainfall from this event, any additional storage that would have been created in the lake would not have prevented the flooding experienced on Mountain Island Lake, or in the upper reaches of Lake Wylie below Mountain Island Lake,” Duke told the FERC.
Duke Energy has faced scrutiny in the past for the way it’s handled its dams on the Catawba-Wateree during major rain events. After the 2019 flood, a group of families who had homes on Mountain Island Lake sued and later settled with Duke for alleged negligence in the way the company handled the situation.
A belief long held by some residents of downstream communities is that Duke purposefully allows places like Mountain Island Lake to flood in order to protect more expensive properties on Lake Norman.
Scott Hunter, the emergency management director and fire marshall for Gaston County, said those claims resurface each time Mountain Island Lake floods. However, Scott said communications between Duke, Gaston County and residents in the flood plain went as well as they could have given the historic rainfall.
He told CPP that Duke Energy predicted well ahead of the storm that the lake level on Mountain Island Lake could reach as high as 110 feet. The communications gave Gaston County enough time to go door-to-door in the floodplain to tell residents to evacuate.
“It’s all over social media that ‘Duke did this and Duke did that,’ but I can tell you that from early on their predictions were a little bit overboard,” Hunter said. “So there was no reason why people didn’t know.”
Gaston County issued a voluntary evacuation order to the Nivens Cove neighborhood, which includes dozens of lakeside homes, on Friday, Sept. 27. The City of Belmont issued further voluntary evacuations for four streets, and Mecklenburg County issued evacuation orders for waterfront streets on the other side of the river.
By that point, Helene had already left the mountains drenched and without power, and much of the rainfall that fell east of the Eastern Continental Divide had been funneled through swollen streams, creeks and secondary rivers, so that it was now surging down the Catawba. By Saturday, Duke Energy had opened four of 11 floodgates of the Cowan’s Ford Dam on Lake Norman.
Westbrook and his crew with the Lucia-Riverbend Fire Department worked to spread the word of imminent flooding to people on the Gaston County-side of Mountain Island Lake.
“Saturday, the 28th, was when I was really starting to worry,” Westbrook said. “I was making a lot of trips up and down the road, trying to do my best to keep an eye on everybody.”
Not every homeowner in the area left, but Hunter and Westbrook both said they gave warning far enough in advance to allow people to leave if they wanted to.
One man, Westbrook recalled, had enough time to pack all of his belongings into several trucks and move them to higher ground, leaving only an empty house that ultimately suffered extensive damage from the storm.
Another man, who lived on a hill, decided that he would not leave.
“It was like an island, (water) completely surrounded his home,” Westbrook said. “Then he couldn’t get out. He went to a higher level in the house, but it did get about 18 inches up in the first floor of his house, even up on that hill he was on.”
Westbrook reconnected with the man while conducting damage assessments after the floodwaters had receded.
“Next time you all tell me to leave, I’m leaving,” the man told him.
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