North Carolina is moving to repair a dam spillway damaged during Hurricane Helene's catastrophic run through the state's mountains, with nearly $100,000 in federal disaster aid now flowing toward the project.

FEMA has awarded $99,594 through its Public Assistance program to fix the spillway at Stoney Creek Dam, classified as a water control facility under the agency's disaster recovery categories. The funding is tied to the presidential disaster declaration issued September 28, 2024, two days after Helene made landfall in Florida and then churned inland, dumping historic rainfall across the southern Appalachians.

Western North Carolina bore some of the storm's worst impacts. What experts described as a 1,000-year flooding event destroyed communities like Chimney Rock, overwhelmed rivers through Asheville, and killed more than 100 people in the state alone, making Helene the deadliest hurricane to hit the mainland U.S. since Katrina. Dam safety became one of the storm's most alarming subplots: Lake Lure Dam came close to failing and prompted evacuations, while smaller dams across the mountains breached or sustained serious damage.

The Stoney Creek Dam repair is a modest line item in what will ultimately be a massive, years-long recovery effort, but it illustrates a problem that predates Helene. North Carolina has roughly 5,800 dams, many built in the mid-20th century for water supply, recreation, or flood control. A large share are approaching or past their design life, and the state's dam safety oversight program has long been considered under-resourced relative to the number of structures it monitors. The American Society of Civil Engineers has repeatedly flagged U.S. dam infrastructure as a national concern.

Climate scientists warn that storms like Helene, which delivered rainfall far beyond what aging infrastructure was designed to handle, are becoming more frequent and intense. That puts pressure on water control facilities built for a different era.

Under the standard FEMA Public Assistance cost-sharing formula, the federal government covers 75 percent of eligible permanent repair costs, leaving the state and local government responsible for the remaining 25 percent, roughly $33,000 in this case. The funding is administered through the North Carolina Department of Public Safety.

Similar federal recovery grants have been flowing to storm-damaged communities across the region. Greenville County, South Carolina, received $1.3 million to clear Hurricane Helene debris, and federal aid has funded road and bridge repairs throughout the Carolinas in the months since the storm.

Repairs at Stoney Creek Dam are part of the longer-term permanent restoration phase of Helene recovery, which will continue well into 2025 and beyond as engineers work through a backlog of damaged public facilities across western North Carolina.