Walking his bike through the mess along Bolin Creek Trail, 33-year Chapel Hill resident Loren Hintz said he has never seen a flood this bad.
“This is more than Hurricane Fran, and in terms of businesses, I think every business that I’ve talked to the water is three or four feet higher than it’s ever been,” he said. “So it’s a lot, lot more.”
The intense flooding brought by Tropical Depression Chantal in early July devastated parts of Orange County, including several of the walking and biking trails around Chapel Hill. As an avid cyclist, Hintz bemoaned the damage along Bolin Creek, where he had to dismount at the barriers blocking off the unusable bike trail. A teacher with a 48-year career in ecological biology, he also warned that floods will be more frequent and more severe if green spaces are not preserved.
Loren Hintz walks his bike among machinery on the unusable Bolin Creek Trail. In his 33 years living in Chapel Hill, he said he’d never seen a flood this bad. (Photo by Ben Crosbie/Chapel Hill Media Group.)
“Preserving more green space, changing the state law which has gotten rid of protection for intermittent streams, I think that’s really important,” he said. “Another thing which I wish they would have done years ago is put warning signs for all the businesses and parking lots that this area is subject to flooding. I’ve never seen those signs, and they need to go up.”
Kevin Robinson, the senior park planning and operations manager for the Town of Chapel Hill, is overseeing the recovery of the trails around town following the damage they sustained from Chantal. Robinson has worked in Chapel Hill for 25 years and also said this was the worst flooding he had ever seen. He said the worst is the Bolin Creek Trail, where the concrete path of the greenway was undercut, utilities were damaged, vegetation around the creek is largely flattened, and random scraps of debris are strewn all around.
“There’s just so much flooding. A lot of scouring underneath, which means the soil and some of the foundations underneath the trails have been washed away,” he said. “Two or three feet underneath the trail at some spots along Bolin Trail, there’s a lot of soil that just bordered the trail that made it safe that has been washed away, so there’s significant drop-offs. Several railings were knocked down. We also had some asphalt brought up along Bolin Trail, so stuff like that.”
Debris is strewn around Bolin Creek, where parts of the riverbed have shifted due to Tropical Depression Chantal. (Photo by Ben Crosbie/Chapel Hill Media Group.)
The park planning and operations manager said a big part of the recovery efforts will be finding ways to make trails more resilient and prepared for future floods.
“We don’t want to just put back something to get it opened up as quickly as possible at this point, kind of noticing and realizing that this will happen again,” said Robinson. “So we want to put something in place that will stand through another flood, that will minimize the damage moving forward, when these things happen. I’m not sure what that is at this point. I have some ideas. But we’ll have to bring in some outside consultants to really look at this hard to figure out what to do.”
Though he said it is too early to estimate a specific timeline for reopening — and that it is different for each trail depending on how much damage they sustained — Robinson said it is likely to be over a year before some areas are usable again. The extent of the damage has also taken its toll on the morale of the people who have worked hard for years to build and maintain these facilities.
“That has been really kind of a downer for our staff as we’ve worked really, really hard over the last several years, last several decades,” he said. “We’ve been working on this stuff for a long time. And the guys, you know, they’re okay, but it’s just kind of a bummer, right? Like, we’re going to do what we always do and work hard and get to the finish line on these and get them back right. But it is a bummer to see it washed away when it was looking so good.”
Alex Carrasquillo, a communications manager for Chapel Hill, said the town recognizes the importance of biking trails for commuters and the urgency to reopen them, but that this work must prioritize effectiveness and durability instead of speed.
“We have had a lot of conversations internally about how important this route, especially the Bolin Creek Trail from MLK to the community center, is a commute for folks who ride bikes and walk and run and are trying to get from one point to another every day,” he said. “So we just can’t stress enough that we understand that, and we just have to do this work safely and thoughtfully to be able to get it back open.”
Chapel Hill Mayor Jess Anderson urged people to use other routes in the meantime, and said the town will be working to provide good alternatives for bikers and walkers.
“They are really dangerous. They’ve sustained structural damage that people just cannot be on,” she said to 97.9 The Hill in July. “So for everyone’s safety, we’re asking that people use alternatives. And I think in the coming weeks and months, we’ll be also working on mapping out some ways for people to get around without having to necessarily get in their cars.”
Featured photo by Ben Crosbie/Chapel Hill Media Group.
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