July 6’s flooding of Bolin Creek damaged many Chapel Hill properties, including the cooperatively-owned Exchange Pool. Still closed to the community, the spot — typically a summertime staple for many families — is currently vacant of swimmers.
Located along Umstead Road, Exchange Pool board members Alex and Grace Witsil said the member-owned facility has flooded before in its 64-year history, but never so bad as during Tropical Depression Chantal, which left it almost unrecognizable.
“Alex called me at 6:30 in the morning after he’d been here and he was like ‘I don’t know. This might be it. The damage is so severe,’” Grace said. “It was like a gut punch at first.”
Only 30 feet from Bolin Creek, Grace said while the pool can flood every few years, it usually only needs to be mucked out afterwards. This year, though, Alex said the storm sent more than 10 feet of water sailing over the creek’s bank, filling the pool with silt and ripping out the property’s fencing and concrete pool deck.
The floodwaters even got inside the pool house, throwing the refrigerator, freezer, and other appliances several feet, he added.
Structural damage to Chapel Hill’s Exchange Pool facility, following Tropical Depression Chantal. (Image via Grace Witsil.)
Bolin Creek’s floodwaters also destroyed the pool’s concrete deck. (Image via Grace Witsil.)
“We honestly didn’t even know where to begin,” Alex said. “We’ve had flood events in the past, and it’s pretty obvious the order of operations in previous events, but this one was bad enough that we actually didn’t even know where to start. It took a long time just to survey everything and get our heads around what actually happened, what needed to get done.”
Some physical repairs are already underway, like replacing the concrete slabs and regrading the parking lot. As the board’s maintenance director, Alex said electrical work and repairs to the fencing and plumbing are also needed to reopen the site.
While physical repairs are already underway at the site, the pool is asking for wider community support to help fund and complete them.
“As we started chipping away at stuff,” he said, “it definitely feels like we’re getting our feet under ourselves a little bit more, [with] no small part to our volunteers, the members, and the community as a whole who have really helped and banded together to get the pool moving in the right direction, moving towards reopening at some point.”
The initial cleanup to clear the site of debris was volunteer-driven and almost entirely familiar faces, Grace said. Founded in 1961, she said the pool’s longtime and new members make the space what it is — even now, without a pool to swim in.
“The morning after the flood, our board president sent out an email to the members and within 20 minutes the first volunteer was here,” she said. “It was overwhelming in a really nice way, how many volunteers showed up to do pretty dirty work and heavy work.”
Volunteers help muck out the facility’s pool. In the week following the flood, the cleanup effort was driven by Exchange Pool members. (Image via Grace Witsil.)
According to Grace, the pool means a lot to the community because it is a space to “come as you are,” citing how it is inclusive, affordable, and low-key. But she added how it also operates on “slim-margins,” and while the pool has identified what physically needs to be done to reopen, it now needs wider community support to complete those repairs.
The board recently launched a GoFundMe campaign to help raise the estimated $60,000 needed to restore the pool. After already raising more than a third of the funds through direct donations, Grace said she is hoping to reopen the pool in August for members to enjoy the last of the summer weather, but that date is dependent on how quickly they can raise the remainder of the money and get the pool back up to code.
And beyond the restoration, she said there needs to be a long-term solution for mitigating future floods at the site, especially as the creek erodes and Bolin’s water flow becomes more aggressive.
“We are really hoping to be able to work with the town to figure out a solution that’s good for us and good for the town to prevent this kind of destruction from continuing to happen,” Grace said. “Because it’s just not sustainable.”
Members swim at the Exchange Pool’s Fourth of July event, just days before Bolin Creek’s historic flooding. (Image via Grace Witsil.)
In the meantime, she said local pools have offered guest passes to Exchange Pool members, and other pools in the league also helped host its 150-person swim team, who were preparing for state championship meets at the time of the storm. But she explained why the community is eager to return to the Umstead Road location.
“For Alex and I, we actually both grew up going to this pool, and we both were on the swim team as kids and then coaches and lifeguards together. So for us, it means a lot to us,” Grace said. “And now we have kids and they’re on the swim team, and we’re not the only family that’s like that actually. There’s a few families here that have come back after generations, and it’s just really special that families are all involved here. It’s a place that kids can just be kids. It’s happy and it’s safe.”
To donate to the Exchange Pool’s GoFundMe campaign, click here.
Featured photo via Grace Witsil.
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