News

Why did FEMA OK purchase and demolition of repaired, inhabited homes?

By Bill Moss, Published: October 2, 2026

Two years after Hurricane Helene devastated the region, the first purchases of homes and other buildings catastrophically damaged or destroyed are nearing closing.

In Henderson County, 98 property owners have applied for relief from FEMA’s Hazard Mitigation Grant Program, which can elevate or relocate homes or buy the property outright, raze the building and preserve the property forever as vacant land deeded to the county.

There are plenty of homes and buildings among the 98 that have applied that no one would argue were not deserving of the federal relief. But in one neighborhood off Howard Gap Road, homeowners are dumbfounded that as many as four repaired, renovated and currently inhabited homes are on the state and federal list of approved buyouts.

Around half the 65 homes in the Cottages at Cypress Run were inundated by the floodwaters of Clear Creek when Helene devastated the county in September 2024. Like in dozens of other subdivisions around the county, homeowners filed for insurance, called contractors and eventually got the mud out. It was, said Cypress Run Homeowners Association President Mike Modzelewski, a true community effort. Neighbors helped one another through the hardship and anxiety.
Of the 31 homes damaged in the storm, six have been sold and five have been rented at market rates, Modzelewski said.

“All have been repaired,” he said. “They’ve been inhabited for 18 months.”

He knows that the homeowners did apply for the hazard mitigation grants and says they’ll probably make out OK when they collect the check at closing.

“Probably because they’re getting the appraised value prior to Helene and they’re not paying real estate commission,” he said.

N.C. Department of Public Safety records show that 42 properties have been certified by FEMA for the hazard mitigation grants after a lengthy review that starts with the county, goes to the state Division of Emergency Management and FEMA and then back to the county. Homes would be demolished under a state contract and the land deeded to the county. County Commission Chair Bill Lapsley once likened the process to the county one day owning dozens of pocket parks in flood-prone areas.

“The county alone determines which eligible mitigation projects will be placed on their project priority list,” the state Emergency Management office says on its website.

Lapsley said this week that he’s aware of the Cypress Run homes but does not consider it the county’s responsibility to second-guess the process.

“Our feeling is that it’s a federal program and the rules are the rules,” he said. “We want these people to get their compensation as fast as possible. We’re trying to stay out of the whole thing.”

Lapsley has been emphatic for two years in denouncing FEMA’s glacial pace in paying approved claims.

“The debris cleanup money that’s been behind and is still behind and hazard mitigation is No. 2” in the magnitude of delay, he said. “We just think it’s a shame that it’s taken two years since the hurricane to get to this point. Our response to the staff is don’t let that question slow down the closing on these properties. We’ll deal with any legal matters after the county gets control of the property. I don’t want Mr. and Mrs. Jones to be caught in a delay.”

FEMA officials did not respond to the Lightning’s request for comment on the situation.

Cypress Run homeowners are not going down without a fight.

Modzelewski met with an attorney this week to evaluate the HOA’s options in trying to block the FEMA buyouts.

He’s also met with county emergency management leaders to make them aware of restrictive covenants the county would be subject to as the owner of lots in Cypress Run.

“No closing can occur until all those encumbrances are resolved,” he said.

In an email to subdivision homeowners last week, Modzelewski said one closing, scheduled for this week, had been called off.

“Once these FEMA purchases are closed, which seem likely even if we are able to delay the process, we may have a role to play in how green space use and maintenance is implemented,” he said.

Modzelewski also said there’s doubt about whether the buyout properties are even in a flood-hazard zone.

“The county shared with us the flood hazard maps and the flood hazard maps indicated that the properties that were flooded were in a special flood hazard zone,” he said. “But we have subsequently found that there was a letter of map revision because the developer elevated the property out of the flood zone.”

Modzelewski and HOA Vice President Bruce Quarantello say Cypress Run and the county stand to lose if the buyouts go forward. The lots go off the tax books, Quarantello said, and the HOA loses annual dues from as many as four homes.
“The neighborhood structure will be unnecessarily disrupted, as these homes are not in a designated floodplain and do not have a history of repetitive flooding,” Quarantello said in an email to the Lightning. “Rather than destroying viable housing and misallocating federal funds, a more practical solution would be to allow the homes to be resold on the market, which could recoup roughly $1.75 million.”

Modzelewski said the fight with FEMA, the uncertainty about the buyout, the loss of HOA control of land in the subdivision and the cost of maintaining the orphaned lots has revived a traumatic experience Cypress Run homeowners would  like to forget.

“We all went through months of driving through mud, we all went through 4- to 6-feet high piles of debris, we all went through the whole reconstruction process with more trucks than you can shake a stick it and now what this is doing is taking us back emotionally and psychologically two years ago where we were when this happened,” he said. “We don’t need to go through this again.”