Repeated Floods Ravage North Carolina Mobile Home Park Amid Policy Gaps
A mobile home park in Haywood County, North Carolina, has suffered multiple flood disasters, most recently when Hurricane Helene swept a trailer into the river, killing a resident and her dogs, while new tenants continue to occupy the flood-prone lots.
Since the early 2000s, the Hyder Mountain Road mobile home community in western North Carolina has been repeatedly flooded by major storms, culminating in Hurricane Helene’s surge that carried a trailer into a bridge and killed a woman and three dogs. Federal disaster-relief buyout schemes, designed primarily for traditional homeowners, often omit mobile homes, which are classified as personal property, so park owners are not compelled to sell the flood-prone land.
Haywood County officials note that buyouts are voluntary and that they lack specific guidance for mobile home parks, while park owners have declined to apply for assistance. New families continue to move into the same river-adjacent lots, some living in campers that lack elevation requirements, keeping the cycle of risk alive. Advocates point to successful buyout models in other states and to past state programs that relocated residents but did not prevent new occupancy on the same sites. The situation highlights a broader policy gap that leaves the nation’s largest source of affordable housing exposed to repeated natural hazards.
Why it matters
It shows how current disaster-relief policies leave low-income mobile home residents vulnerable to repeated floods.
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