Brunswick Beacon, 10.10.24
Brunswick County is represented in NC’s Senate by Bill Rabon (District 8) and in NC’s House by Frank Iler (District 17) and Charles Miller (District 19). All are Republicans with much to answer for, according to explosive revelations in “How the North Carolina Legislature Left Homes Vulnerable to Helene,” New York Times, 10/3/24.
Area residents were already upset because Republican officials consistently favor developers who fund their campaigns, allowing overdevelopment to threaten what makes Brunswick County special. The destruction of homes and loss of life from three “thousand-year storms” in nine years demonstrates that the actions of these Republican legislators made the damage worse.
Efforts to weaken NC building standards accelerated in 2010, when Republicans took control of both houses of NC’s General Assembly. They rejected limits on steep slope construction, which could have reduced the number of homes lost to landslides; blocked a requirement that homes be built above the height of expected flooding; weakened wetland protections, increasing the risk of dangerous storm water runoff; and slowed adoption of updated building codes, making it harder for NC to qualify for federal climate-resilience grants.
The NC home building industry has systematically opposed rules requiring that homes be built to higher standards, according to Kim Wooten, an engineer who serves on the North Carolina Building Code Council, the group that sets home building requirements for NC.
“The home builders association has fought every bill that has come before the General Assembly to try to improve life safety,” said Wooten, whose company, Facilities Strategies Group, specializes in building engineering. Wooten says many Republican lawmakers are themselves home builders or have received campaign contributions from the industry, and “vote for bills that line their pocketbooks and make home building cheaper.”
We can protect ourselves and Brunswick County from developers and their Republican enablers by electing Democrats Katherine Randall (Senate, District 8), Charles Jones (House, District 17) and Jill Brown (House, District 19).
Michael P. Rush
Leland
Comments