In Chapel Hill, flooding and outages follow Hurricane Matthew

Chapel Hill was inundated with five and a half inches of rain Saturday as Hurricane Matthew tore along the coast of North Carolina.

Pockets of localized flooding occurred at Camelot Village Condominiums, the public housing off of South Estes Drive, Brookwood Condominiums and Cleland Drive. Duke Energy also reported roughly 3,000 power outages across Orange County.

Barry McLamb, the emergency management coordinator for the Chapel Hill Fire Department, said Camelot Village Condominiums were the most heavily damaged apartments.

Twelve people had to be evacuated by the fire department due to the flooding. They stayed the night at an emergency shelter set up at Smith Middle School for residents displaced by the flooding or without power. No injuries were reported.

“As usual, the Camelot Village was the heaviest impacted as far as damage — we had six buildings that had water damage there,” McLamb said.

Major flooding has occurred at Camelot Village in 1995, 2000, 2006, 2008, 2013 and 2015. It was constructed in the floodway of Bolin Creek.

As of midday Sunday, 637 customers with Duke Energy in the Chapel Hill-Carrboro area had reported power outages, with reports starting as early as Friday. In Carrboro, 36 customers lost power on Hanna Street due to fallen trees and limbs.

Between Durham and Chapel Hill, more than 10,000 customers were reported to have lost power on Saturday.

Many of the outages were due to fallen trees and tree limbs knocked over by heavy gusts of wind and rain. The clean up of trees, debris and flood-impacted areas began Sunday.

Following the storm, officials encouraged people to still be aware of potential safety issues such as downed power lines, flooded areas and the possibility of more trees falling. A section of U.S. Highway 15-501 headed toward Durham was without power early Sunday, with an officer directing traffic at the intersection of Garrett Road.

Kirby Saunders, the emergency management coordinator for Orange County Emergency Services, said they monitored the storm and prepared for it by resupplying resources like fuel and putting shelter teams on standby.

“We’ve topped off generators to make sure the generators are working and functional, we’ve resupplied our fuel stations to supply our critical resources like public safety, we have put shelter teams on standby, we’ve got an animal care sheltering team also on standby,” he said Friday. “We’ve followed our plans and are at full preparedness mode.”

Anne McGovern, a communications consultant for Duke Energy, said Duke Energy had been monitoring the storm and had plans in place for teams to access potential flood zones.

“We have crews that are ready to respond,” she said Friday. “We are absolutely prepared for any outages that occur. We have a pair of meteorologists that are monitoring Hurricane Matthew and they are helping us develop our response preparation plan. We’ve also identified potential flood zones and we’ve trained our workers on how to access those areas safely and find alternate travel routes to reach damaged areas.”

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