North Carolina government revives landslide mapping program after 3 deaths

State lawmakers in North Carolina approved the budget Friday and included $3.6 million for the Department of Environmental Quality to reboot a landslide mapping program that legislators stopped funding in 2011, according to the Associated Press.

The revival of the program comes just after three people died during May due to landslides in the western part of the state. On May 18, a woman in Polk County, North Carolina, died after her garage collapsed during a landslide. In another incident on May 30, two people died in a structural collapse due to a gas leak following a landslide in Boone, North Carolina.

Since these incidents, residents have expressed outrage over the lack of warning about landslide hazard areas.

The state directed the North Carolina Geological Survey to create landslide hazard maps in 19 of the mountain counties, but only four were mapped before the state ceased funding for the project in 2011, according to the Charlotte Observer.

The North Carolina Geological Survey team of seven was commissioned by the state in 2004 after landslides killed five people in Macon County. The geologists were to create landslide hazard maps in 19 mountain counties by assessing angles, slopes and how land reacted to rain. The goal was to gauge the landslide potential of certain areas in order to prevent injury or death.

Concerns about decreased property values as well as a tight budget resulted in the program being squeezed out of the state budget.

The woman from Polk County had lived on her property for 25 years. Neither she nor her husband were aware that their house was located in a landslide hazard area, according to The News & Observer.

The mapping program could have shown residents which parts of those counties were prone to landslides. The state General Assembly gave final approval to budget adjustments on June 1, but Gov. Roy Cooper could still veto it.

A landslide on June 5 blocked North Carolina Highway 9 in Bat Cave, North Carolina. Engineers on the scene said that it could take weeks for the highway to reopen, according to the Associated Press.

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