GREENSBORO, N.C. — What do engineering experts think about the damage to Western North Carolina's infrastructure like the unearthed water plant pipes Greensboro Water Resources crews are working on in Buncombe County or the roads that had been eaten out from underneath?
North Carolina A&T's new Chancellor is a civil engineer and risk engineering expert. Dr. James L. Martin II told me today that the damage we're seeing is not because the construction of our roads or water plants was bad or inadequate.
"We couldn't plan this. This is unchartered territory," said Martin. He said the damage reminded him of the tsunami in Japan.
"We can't go out and build everything for floods and rainstorms of biblical proportions," said Martin.
He said it would be easy to focus on rebuilding roads to withstand the catastrophic weather we've seen, but he says we need to think bigger than that.
"It's not a matter of designing a better roadway, we need to design alternative routes. We can't go through and design a whole road for events like this, that wouldn't be a sustainable way to go, but we do need to find alternative routes," said Martin.
Helene's water and landslides made hundreds of roads impassable. Many of those roads were the only way in and out of locations. Towns were cut off, and still are in some places. To get past the impassable routes, people have used helicopters, and mules and hiked their way to find folks.
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