Historic flooding highlights need for risk management, new ideas on insurance

By Lynn Roberson

Marshall Presbyterian Church sits along South Main Street in downtown Marshall, NC, snug against a craggy granite outcropping. Standing on the front porch of the Colonial Revival-style brick building, railroad tracks are visible across the street, and just beyond that flows the French Broad River.

Through the decades, members of this church - now 125+ years old - have always recognized that the picturesque river posed a risk, along with the beauty and opportunities it provides. Church history chronicles how a previous structure — from when the house of faith was called Couper Memorial Church — had suffered flood damage, including in 1940. That August, two floods in quick succession swamped the church with five feet and seven feet of water.

From the late 1940s to 1950, as the congregation planned and constructed a new building, they kept an eye on the river.

“I think it’s really important that in 1950, they built the church of reinforced concrete,” says Marshall Presbyterian Church Interim Minister Merri Alexander. “Those walls are a foot and a half to two-feet thick, even the interior walls. So, they were thinking ahead that it would flood again. And they put their sanctuary on the second level, which also indicates they knew the floods were going to come.”

Risk management mindset

This type of analysis and planning to reduce the impact of catastrophes epitomizes risk management, says Gene Lai, the James J. Harris Endowed Chair in Risk Management and Insurance in UNC Charlotte’s Belk College of Business. Lai’s research explores the intersection of risk management practices and financial stability. His work offers use-driven information that financial institutions, insurance companies and other enterprises can use to enhance their risk management frameworks, which can improve financial stability and build resilience against potential risks.

Lai notes how some homeowners in Florida have raised their main living spaces to the second floor, similar to what Marshall Presbyterian Church did with its sanctuary, fellowship hall and kitchen. He points to Taiwan, where structures are built to withstand typhoons and where people move their cars to parking areas that government provides when storms threaten.

Rising above

The new Marshall Presbyterian Church building — with pews, windows and an organ donated by members and a sanctuary with wooden curves that resemble an ark — was dedicated on Sunday, June 4, 1950. The congregation marked the joyful occasion with inspirational messages, music and laying of the cornerstone just as the sun broke through morning rain clouds. Church records put the cost of the structure at $70,000 — or $924,000 today.

In the 75 years since its dedication, the house of worship has sat safely near the river, with its main level elevated above the recorded flood levels of the 1900s, including the Great Flood of 1916.

The church also has taken the far-sighted step of maintaining insurance on the structure, currently at $500,000, although the rising cost of insurance has led to difficult choices on coverage of its contents.

“We’re very fortunate that our clerk of session works for an insurance company,” Alexander says. “Working for an insurance company, she’s required to go to seminars and learn about risks. Her experience over the years of knowing and learning about floods, I personally think was probably very helpful, if not influential, in the Marshall church making sure that it had flood insurance for the structure.”

Insurance dilemma

Everyone has some level of flood risk they should assess and understand, as the church has done, no matter where they are located, says Tom Marshall, a Belk College senior lecturer in risk management and insurance. Marshall has leadership experience in the insurance industry in underwriting, claims and marketing, including with a Fortune 500 company.

“One problem is the take-up rate for flood insurance,” Marshall says. “That means the percentage of people that buy flood coverage is extremely low, and that’s a problem everywhere. In the western part of North Carolina, where they had all this devastation, just 1% of the population had flood insurance coverage.”

Flooding is considered a distinct risk compared to other perils covered by standard insurance for homes or businesses, such as fire, theft or wind damage. Currently, the National Flood Insurance Program is managed by FEMA and is delivered to the public by a network of more than 50 insurance companies and the NFIP Direct.

Risk management and insurance researcher Lai wonders if it is time to consider changes in the approach to flood insurance, particularly with the increasing incidence of catastrophic storms. Homeowner insurance in general, for example, doesn’t provide flood coverage, because it is difficult for insurance companies to diversify their risk.

“How do we spread the risk and encourage people to buy flood insurance?” Lai says. “One idea could be to integrate and mandate flood insurance into homeowners’ insurance policies as standard or optional coverage, with flood insurance in higher-risk areas and those considered as lower-risk areas today having a different level of insurance premiums. Doing this would spread the risk and create a larger pool of money when disaster strikes.”

Another idea could be for the government to cover flood insurance for people with lower incomes. “Why do I propose this as an idea?” Lai says. “Currently FEMA helps after the fact. I know FEMA tries, but they may not be as efficient as insurance companies, because this is what insurance companies do.”

UNC Charlotte alumnus Zak Hooker ‘16, who earned a bachelor’s degree in finance with a concentration in risk management and insurance and now is an Amwins Access vice president heading up a flood insurance team, sees opportunities for improvements. Amwins is a leading specialty insurance broker.

“If we really want to protect investments, a bit more risk mitigation, or risk management, can help,” Hooker says. “I think that just like with the risk of wildfires, flood is still a bit less predictable than some other risks. The problem, too, is that we have such a small purchasing pool. Insurance obviously is based off the law of large numbers. I think if we got more people involved in the flood industry, in that segment of insurance, we could hope to see rates decline.”

Hurricane Helene storms in

Marshall Presbyterian Church leaders, along with others in Western North Carolina, paid close attention six months ago when Hurricane Helene began its push into Georgia and over the Southern Appalachians, shortly after making landfall in Florida. The storm brought record-breaking rainfall to WNC on Sept. 26 and 27, causing historic catastrophic flooding that was worsened by days of earlier heavy rainfall. 

Hurricanes like Helene in Western North Carolina, and before that Florence in 2018, have increasingly caused inland flooding in North Carolina cities and towns, Hooker says, and are challenging people’s sense of security.

“The storm surge, or rise in sea level, is what people have usually associated with floods,” he says. “But the inland flooding is what I think more people need to be aware of. As unfortunate as these types of events are, they are making people think more about flooding risk elsewhere. If you’re at the top of a mountain, you likely have less flood risk, but in the valleys of that mountain you may have a huge flood risk, even though you’re still in the mountains. Elevation above sea-level can also provide a false sense of security.”

Floods are one of the costliest disasters in the United States, he says. “The average homeowner is 27 times more likely to experience a flood than a fire, and it only takes a few inches of water to cause tens of thousands of dollars in damage,” he says. “We also know that a high percentage of flood insurance claims occur in moderate- to low-risk areas.”

The Downtown Marshall Association describes the impact of Hurricane Helene this way: “The French Broad River crested at over 20 feet, flooding the downtown area with over 12 feet of water and taking lives, buildings, jobs and businesses that have been there for many, many years.” Every structure in downtown Marshall was severely damaged or destroyed, as raging waters scoured out buildings including town hall, opposite Marshall Presbyterian Church on South Main Street.

Efforts to prepare

As the French Broad River, one of the oldest rivers in the world, swelled out of its banks, church members Howard Seiler, who serves as a member of the church session, and his wife Cathy headed from their home to the church. They and others readied the structure for the coming flood as best they could.

“We came down to the church, put up the plastic in front of the door and the sandbags we had in storage,” Cathy Seiler says. “I was so proud of myself. I came through and I put everything up off the floor a couple of feet.” She even took a picture to document the preparation. The flood doors a church member had previously installed as part of the church’s risk management practices were closed in one effort to hold back the water.

But the water kept rising. “The church was filling up on Friday,” Howard Seiler says. “I was up against the wall because the current was way crazy. I left about 1 o’clock, and I had to walk along the embankment to get out. They’ve said it crested at 8 o’clock, and they wouldn’t let us back into town until Sunday.”

After the storm

As town members were allowed to return when the waters receded, Seiler was the first person to arrive at the church in the aftermath. He realized that the damage was breath-taking. An early ominous sign was the water mark he spotted on the church’s outer brick walls, reaching the bottom sill of the sanctuary’s stained glass windows.

“When I came down here and it was several feet of mud to walk through, and I opened the door and saw the situation, I thought there was no way we would ever get this cleaned out,” he says. The further he pushed into the church, the more the devastation became clear. Water and silt from the intrusion into the lower level had risen into the upper level, including the sanctuary and the stairwells.

“The water came up all the way from downstairs,” says Cathy Seiler. “It lifted the floor in here 2 1/2 inches. When the water receded it, it dropped the floor back down on top of mud and debris, so the joists that are under here had to be cleaned out. It was unbelievable. The mud had to be shoveled out, and the carpet was soaked, so we had to pull all that out and pull up the tile and other layers underneath.”

The grand piano was mostly saved from the water except for some damage to its legs, by being raised up three steps higher in the chancel, as were other historical and meaningful pieces. But the historic pews were damaged by the mud and water, and are now being assessed for the cost to repair them. Currently, they’re stored in the lower level of the church, making way for cleaning in the sanctuary.

In the lower level, a massive tree battered its way into the Neighbors in Need pantry, for which the church provides space, where sweet potatoes, cans of food, fallen shelves, broken glass and bags of swollen beans were moored in the muck. A new commercial refrigerator provided by MANNA FoodBank was tossed on its belly, adding to the loss both financially and in the ability to serve the community.

Despite the staggering sight, it didn’t take long for the can-do spirit in the church and the entire town to rise, much like the river’s waters. Now, six months after the flood, the strength persists.

“Resilience emerged day one,” says Alexander, the church’s interim minister. “And it became evident to me that church members were going to take care of the church, and they were going to rebuild. There wasn’t even a thought of waiting and seeing about the insurance money. It was, ‘What are our first steps?’ And on the other side of the coin, the patience is running thin because of how long we’re having to wait. The patience isn’t going to give out. We can’t make it happen any faster than we can.”

Changing risks, forward planning

As the risk of flooding evolves, with changing weather and other dynamic factors, Charlotte experts encourage people to do extensive research. “I would absolutely look into the flood mapping resources or flood prediction tools,” Hooker says. “I would consider, ‘Am I in a floodway? What is the nearest floodway? What other things protect my house? Floodproofing? Is it levee protection? What else is downstream or even upstream, if I’m on a river?”

What’s happening upstream matters downstream, such as when a dam’s operation or a downstream blockage causes water levels to rise and move upstream.

Terminology can be confusing, which can lull people into a false sense of security, Marshall says. For example, “100-year flood” is a term of probability, not frequency, referring to a flood event that has a 1% chance of occurring in any given year. “People may be misled and think if we just had a 100-year flood that it would be another 100 years before we have another one,” he says. “That’s not what the term means at all.”

Loss control is also very important to reduce risk, Marshall says. “From one perspective, that’s done by the Army Corps of Engineers, and a lot of federal funds go into regular review of flood prone areas and taking actions that would help mitigate the flood,” he says. “That is mainly by raising the barriers around the streams and creeks and rivers, and doing further excavation, because even if you have a stream or river or creek that is not flooded, it still gets mud and build-up, and it has to be excavated periodically.”

Individuals can also implement loss control steps, such as by waterproofing basements and securing valuables out of the reach of the flooding. If flooding does occur, reducing mold and mildew are important steps people may not consider.

For Marshall Presbyterian Church, mitigation has meant heaters to fight back mold growth, removal of ductwork, pulling off interior wallboards and refinishing them, ripping up carpet and hauling out dozens of wheelbarrow loads of mud, among many other clean-up steps. Church members were aided by hundreds of volunteers from around the nation.

“What dear and loving work you have done,” a church social media post says, in gratitude.

Marshall Presbyterian’s future

Things look promising for payout of the insurance policy, and productive conversations with FEMA are ongoing, the building committee is obtaining quotes from contractors and church leaders are planning what the future may hold. Yet, the church is still sitting with a seriously damaged, unoccupied structure six months after the flood, as are untold others in Western North Carolina.

Following a Sunday morning service earlier this year at a temporary site provided to the church at Madison County Early College, townspeople joined with the congregation to envision the next decades of the church’s life.

On easel sheets, attendees wrote their wishes for the future and expressed what the church has meant to them in the past. Someone penned a key reminder for the church and its hometown. “Rebuild with resilience,” the note advises. “There will be another flood.”

The church is raising additional funds because while it had insurance coverage for the structure, it did not have sufficient insurance to repair and replace contents due to the expense of the premiums. In two notable contributions, Presbyterian Disaster Assistance provided connections to mold remediation groups with no cost to the church, and The Community Foundation of Western North Carolina awarded an Emergency and Disaster Response Fund Grant.

As Marshall Presbyterian Church navigates its future, a few things are certain. The church will continue to be present for the town through its connections to so many people, organizations and needs. And, when the church opens its doors once again, the town will be there with them, at least in spirit, as will others from across the nation who have grown to know this faithful servant in this mountain valley.

“One nice thing is that the bell still works in the bell tower,” Alexander says. “I think when the community hears the bell ringing the first Sunday we’re back, it will be a moment to mark, whether people are sitting in the pews or not. I think it will mean something to Marshall, and I think that the fact that the building stood means something as well.”