Quake damaged up to 200 homes in NC mountain county. Will there be aid for repairs?

Nothing in its 161-year history prepared Alleghany County, which is swaddled in green mountains near the Virginia line north of Charlotte, for the seconds of terror that visited Sunday morning.

“It sounded like a herd of buffalo came through the house, and it shook the house unbelievably,” Matthew Crouse said of the magnitude 5.1 earthquake that rattled Sparta, the county seat, for several seconds.

The quake, which has been followed by five smaller aftershocks since Sunday, left 15 to 25 homes uninhabitable in a county of just 11,000 people. In all, 150 to 200 homes suffered some damage, county officials say. While county residents escaped serious injury, few have insurance that covers earthquakes.

When Gov. Roy Cooper and state emergency management officials visited Tuesday to inspect the damage, he could promise only to try to ferret out state or federal disaster aid to fix it. Cooper said he had a fondness for Alleghany because of many past trips taking his daughters to Camp Cheerio in Glade Valley.

“This is not the kind of disaster we’re used to in North Carolina,” Cooper said in a meeting with local officials. The state recently was struck by Hurricane Isaias and by a major tornado in Bertie County, all while it continues to battle the coronavirus pandemic. But North Carolina hadn’t suffered an earthquake of such strength since 1916.

Cooper urged local officials to carefully tally all damage in hopes of qualifying for some kind of state or federal aid, such as the state’s individual assistance program for homeowners.

The three-year-old garden center that Crouse manages was left with merchandise strewn across its floors, cracks in concrete slabs and the parking lot, and metal outbuildings with buckled siding.

“No one up here is going to have earthquake coverage,” Crouse said. “It would be like having flood insurance on top of a mountain.”

The state Geological Survey says North Carolina has no active fault zones, where fractures between blocks of rock can trigger earthquakes. Earthquakes that do moderate damage strike the inland Carolinas only every few decades, the U.S. Geological Survey says, with small quakes felt once every year or two.

VFW Post 7034, in the spot just southeast of Sparta where the earthquake was centered, was built by soldiers returning from World War II. On Tuesday, the building looked like it had been vandalized by giants.

Broken plates that had spilled from kitchen shelves — the post had served up 400 chicken dinners just Saturday — littered a concrete floor, which is now cracked. Ceiling fan shafts in the dining room had all gouged two-inch holes in ceiling tiles, measuring the sway of the building. The room’s stage was hanging an inch above the floor, and a jagged inch-wide crack ran down an exterior wall.

Doug Blevins, a past commander of the post who spent his career in construction, figures it could cost up to $150,000 to fix the damage.

“We know the sacrifices and hard work that went into this building. It’s sort of heartbreaking to see what happened to it,” Blevins said. “It’s not only used by the VFW; it’s more of a community center for the town.”

On nearby Deer Haven Road, Steve Severt recounted the damage to most every house. That included the ranch home of his wife’s 85-year-old aunt, whose stone chimney now lists to the right. Severt fears the house is a total loss.

“The inside looks like somebody trashed it — every cabinet, every drawer” emptied onto the floor, Severt said. “The whole back of his house is about to fall off,” he added, pointing to a neighbor’s house. “And his chimney is split down the middle,” he said of a third house.

“Never in 1,000 years would you think that an earthquake would hit you.”

Mike Parlier, who lives up the street, showed Cooper how one brick wall had separated about three-quarters of an inch from the wall beside it. The rental house Parlier owns next door has foundation cracks that will cost $12,000 just to stabilize, he said.

While his insurance policy might cover damage to some of his homes’ contents, Parlier said, “anything that’s related to (structural damage), insurance is not going to touch.”

Mike Sprayberry, North Carolina’s emergency management director, said the state has sent structural engineers and building inspectors to help assess the damage. He said he hoped damage tallies could be completed in a few days, and that it’s likely the county will qualify for some form of aid.

“We’re learning all this as we go,” said county emergency management coordinator Daniel Roten. While water main breaks were reported Sunday, most residents have maintained utility service, and those unable to stay in their homes have been housed with family members.

Alleghany is a Tier 2 county, putting it in the middle range of economic distress in North Carolina. Residents tend to be older, with one in four 65 years or older. With the onset of the pandemic, its unemployment rate hit 11% in May.

“We’re poor but we’re proud,” said county commissioner John Irwin. “We’ll get through this.”

This story was originally published August 11, 2020 at 5:06 PM.