After Tropical Depression Chantal poured on the Triangle earlier this month, some local farmers markets are still recovering from the flood damage. The storm particularly hit both the Eno River and Chapel Hill farmers markets’ locations.
In downtown Hillsborough, vendors, families, and community members packed the Eno River Farmers Market pavilion on Saturday morning. The day looked like any of the market’s typical busy days, but the site had been flooded with up to four feet of water just two weeks before.
And when she saw the site after the storm, there were two words going through Market Manager Melissa Cada’s head.
“Oh crap,” she said. “I mean we just couldn’t believe how much rain we had and how much the Eno swelled.”
Flooding at the Eno River Farmers Market reached the yellow paint on the pavilion’s bollards, according to Market Manager Melissa Cada.
The David E. Price Pavilion sits just next to the Eno River, and while explaining how the floodwater soon receded, Cada said the cleanup effort is still a “work in progress” for both the site and River Park. Located next to the market, the greenway is temporarily closed to the community.
“We are so thankful to be back here, but it’s still very frustrating because I came down this morning and there was some mud because of the rain,” Cada said. “The county did a really great job of cleaning it up, but then with the rains that have happened this week, the residue has pooled up along the sides of the pavilion and a little bit in the pavilion further down. So we had to shovel it this morning.”
Just behind the market, Hillsborough’s River Park greenway is temporarily closed to the community.
The weekly market did not miss any typical days of selling, but it did briefly relocate to the Bonnie B. Davis Environment and Agricultural Center. Even though she called the location more of a hike and uncovered from the heat, the market manager said more than a thousand community members showed up to support the local vendors who had been affected by the flooding.
“Our hearts just went out to the farmers because last week was Tomato Fest,” Cada said. “Many of their tomato crops were split, and we just wanted to do whatever we could to be able to hold a market. Our farmers, they also had to pick a lot of their produce way ahead of time because of the rains, and so we just really needed to have a market held last week.”
The manager for Chapel Hill’s farmers market Kate Underhill said she also worried about how its vendors and farmers would be affected, before stating how most who sell at the local market have been able to return as normal.
“I know people had wet fields, and they continue to have wet fields because it keeps on raining,” the manager said. “But we only had one farmer who told me she was not coming on Saturday. It’s PlowGirl Farm, and she actually lives closest to Chapel Hill of all of our farmers, and she has a very small farm and runs it pretty much by herself. So the fact that she had these wet fields she had to deal with, she said she couldn’t make it last Saturday.”
Underhill said the market being a “pop-up” worked out in its favor, without a permanent structure in the University Place Mall parking lot where it operates every Tuesday and Saturday. With the lot briefly closing for a few days to clear it of flooded vehicles and mud, the market only missed one typical day of selling and reopened with a donation drive for Chantal flood relief.
During its peak, Underhill said the storm submerged the parked cars in up to four feet of floodwater, including a vehicle belonging to the local farmers market. Permanently parked in the lot, it holds equipment like tents, tables, and other event supplies.
“When we opened up the van doors, you could actually see the little detritus right at the top of the doorhandles, all the way around,” Underhill explained. “There was water in the drinks spot, on the dashboard there, and you could see just the line of detritus that was left around the edges of the van.”
The floodwater in University Place Mall’s parking lot reached up to four feet, and the high water mark is shown with blue tape on the market’s van.
Luckily, Underhill said a lot of the equipment is made to be outdoors and only needs to be cleaned. However, it was clear the van itself needed to be replaced — and quickly to keep the market running and to host pop-ups in other locations, she explained. In the meantime, the current vehicle sits behind the market’s welcome tent for customers to see.
“We put this blue line on here to show people at the market who are coming, ‘That’s the high water mark,’” Underhill said. “It gives people a visual of how much water was in this parking lot, which is pretty amazing. It would be almost up to my shoulders.”
And Underhill called the community’s support “tremendous” so far. Not even two weeks after launching a GoFundMe campaign for a new vehicle, the market recently exceeded its $14,000 goal, both through the online fundraiser and in-person donations at the market. The additional funds raised will go towards both replacing lost equipment and the Double Bucks Program, which doubles the benefits for SNAP/EBT customers to spend at Triangle markets.
“I think we are feeling very thankful that it wasn’t worse for us,” Underhill said. “We are very aware it was worse for a lot of people.”
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