Mayor Knox White has spent the week on the streets of Greenville, meeting with residents in neighborhoods hit hard by Helene, driving around with city leadership assessing damage, and meeting with state + federal officials.
On Friday, Oct. 4, we met White behind the Greenville Downtown Airport, where contracted crews will haul large trucks of debris. We brought our questions — along with yours — to discuss how Greenville leadership responded to the challenges of this week + what’s next.
What did the City of Greenville do well in its response to Helene?
I think the city did a lot of things really well. The early preparations we made had paid off in dividends to this day. We’re so grateful for all the early stuff that took place. Teams were in the field right away to do assessments, even when the storm was still going on. We knew our first priority was to clear the streets and open up streets, and in just a couple days we had all the streets open with the exception of those few areas where the live electric wires are still wrapped around the trees. That’s been a problem, not just here, but around the whole state to get Duke Energy to address those first.
That was priority number one, getting the major corridors open with the traffic lights. We bought a bunch of generators. We had all the intersections back in operation in record time, so that worked out really well too. That was a good decision to buy generators, a good decision to focus first on the streets and the corridors in the city.
What could the City of Greenville have done better?
Well, I think a lesson for improvement — but I think we did a pretty good job — is communication. We tried to put out new information all the time as a city using social media. We’re still learning kind of what the priority should be on that.
Otherwise, I would just say that we’re like everyone else. We had to stay on Duke Energy from day one, constant contact. I considered my role to be something like an episode out of “Storm Chasers.” I just had to get in the car with some staff to find out where Duke actually was. We stayed on them throughout the process and that continues on today.
What is your message to Greenville residents who remain without power a week after the storm?
Well, you have to continue to have patience. All I can say is that we’re on (Duke Energy) every single hour of the day and we’re also — of course — focused on getting some of those wires out of the tree limbs as well so those roads can be open. We’re just focused on getting lights on in the city.
The vast majority of our questions from readers were about moving utilities underground, which isn’t something that can happen overnight. Is this a priority for the city moving forward, and if so what do the next steps look like?
I’ve always been about burial of underground utilities. I’ve always felt like burial of underground utilities has to be a long-term goal of any community. There are pros and there are cons, but the pros outweigh the cons. To do that, we’re going to have to get help from the state of South Carolina. The hundreds of millions of dollars that it would cost can’t be put on local governments. We do have ideas on that, and like everything else we do in the city of Greenville, I think we get a lot more bang for the buck than most communities.
We’ve seen you stopping by community efforts to give back, both locally and to our neighbors in Western North Carolina. What does it tell you about our community that — in our own time of devastation — people are out trying to help others?
I was I was walking around with City Council member John DeWorken in the North Main area a few nights ago looking at houses and talking to people. I was so struck by, even in some neighborhoods where you had major trees on top of houses, the people who were on the street talking to us, everybody wanted to talk about Asheville. Everybody’s focused on the utter devastation in Western North Carolina, where some have friends and relatives and certainly relationships. It just speaks well of our community. We do understand that we have our own disaster to take care of here, but it is so much greater there. I think we all look forward to the time we can begin to really focus on that.
The remaining questions were submitted by our readers.
“We saw how vulnerable weak and diseased trees are in a storm. How can the city incentivize residents to have trees pruned at least every two or three years?” — Paul K
That is an excellent idea. We have a tree fund, we have an Arborist on staff, and I think that’s an excellent idea that perhaps more one-on-one consultation needs to take place. I will tell you that we do a certain amount of that and oftentimes people don’t like hearing news that their tree in the front yard has some major problems and really, perhaps, should be chopped down.
“Is it possible to bring in a lumber company to actually use the trees that have fallen?” — Suzanne W
Or further, what will happen with all of the debris? Is there a plan to recycle the waste?
We cleared the streets, now we’ve got to go pick it all up. We secured a location to haul everything. It’s only the beginning. We found one of the best haulers of trash in the United States to come and help us. This allowed us to double the size of our public works crews. The main thing right now is to get it out of the neighborhoods, get the trees off of the houses, get the trees out of the streets and roads, and get them over here.
“Why do so many intersections in the city have no battery backups for the traffic lights?” — Ross D.
Well, many of those traffic lights — in fact most of them — are state highway department traffic lights. Even though we’re not supposed to touch them, we did. We brought our own generators. We told SCDOT, “Hey, we’re going to take this.” And we were able to get all the intersections — with just one or two exceptions — now back in operation. That’s a good question for state DOT.
“What’s the best way to show our thanks to the city workers who are working tirelessly to get Greenville back in action?” - Jenny P.
From day one, even before the wind stopped and the rain stopped, we had crews out on the street assessing the situation and they really went right to it. Making sure they’re taken care of well is something that means a lot to us. We’ve made sure they’re well fed. We’re making sure they’re having breaks. They appreciate all the kind words of being expressed. The same thing goes for our first responders, police, and fire. Everybody’s been full speed ahead but I think the words of thanks are always appreciated.
Is there anything that our questions (or our readers’ questions) didn’t give you a chance to address that you want to share with our audience?
We’re really moving into another phase where we’re also looking to provide more direct assistance to those people who have seen their houses with a tree on top and all the structural damage we’ve seen. This morning, the city manager waived all the permit fees for people who will be coming to city hall with their contractors to make repairs. All permit fees are waived.
We’re also going to open our permit office on Saturday and Sunday. We’ll do everything we can to help those who have been more directly affected by this storm.
