Photo By Michael Davis | Contractors working under the direction of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers clear...... read more read more
MCDOWELL COUNTY, N.C. — Tucked in the South Mountains of North Carolina, the 1,100-acre Camp Grimes has long been a place of adventure and growth for Boy Scouts of America. But after Hurricane Helene, much of the property was buried in debris, and the camp was nearly unrecognizable.
Trails and activity areas were blocked, trees were down across campsites, and the clock was ticking toward a busy summer season. For Camp Ranger Troy Williams, there was no clear path forward, until a text message changed everything.
“Toward the beginning of March, a friend of mine sent me a picture of a Private Property Debris Removal program flyer hanging on a bulletin board and says, ‘hey, do you know about this?’” Williams recalled. “So I fired it off to my supervisor and said, ‘I don’t know if we qualify, but we need to jump on this right now.’”
What followed was a turnaround that not only gave Camp Grimes a chance to reopen, it became a case study in what disaster recovery can look like when outreach, innovation, and community trust come together.
Camp Grimes is in McDowell County where PPDR operations are underway.
Under mission assignments from FEMA, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is supporting Hurricane Helene debris removal operations across Western North Carolina. The work includes both waterway debris removal and PPDR missions in multiple counties.
For the PPDR mission, property owners must submit a Right of Entry form, which is a legal document that allows government contractors to access private land to remove debris. Collecting and verifying these forms is one of the first critical steps in determining eligibility and getting work underway. Without it, the Corps cannot remove debris from private property.
In most counties, the ROE intake and site assessment process has been handled by contractors hired through local governments. But in McDowell County, the Corps was able to do something different — directly contracting the team responsible for both intake and debris removal.
“McDowell County was the first one that we had a Corps-led contractor for ROE collection, and that's different from what we had done in Asheville and Buncombe County,” said Mark Cardwell, the USACE PPDR mission manager. “So that allowed us to have direct contact with the contractor where we could influence the process of the ROE collection, and we could influence the process of the site assessments.”
Terri McClure, the contracted program manager leading PPDR intake and oversite in McDowell County, didn’t waste any time getting started. Her team set up an intake center at the emergency services building, picked up where the county left off, and began driving a community outreach campaign unlike any other.
“She fully integrated with the county,” Cardwell said. “She worked with the county staff to get any work that they had done prior to them arriving on the contract.”
McClure’s team used every available avenue to reach and help property owners in the county.
“We reached out to the churches and the schools… we were in the grocery store talking to people, we had flyers, door hangers, and hung posters at the hospital,” McClure said. “If something was going on in the community that we heard about, like events at a daycare or a real estate agents’ luncheon, we were there with flyers and our iPads doing intake.”
They also visited elderly or immobile residents, held application fairs in hard-hit areas like Old Fort, and even cold-called people after canvassing homes with visible debris.
“We just tried to be where the need was,” McClure said. “And I think that made a lot of difference in why we now have a large number of applications.”
McDowell County officials originally expected around 150 ROE packages. As of mid-April, the number has climbed to nearly 1,000. McClure stated that a lot of people thought their chance for help had passed them by, but submissions in McDowell County will be accepted until May 1.
“What it means for the county is a lot of people that were qualified and eligible to receive assistance would have never received it without Terri and her team’s work efforts,” Cardwell said.
One of the nearly 1,000 ROE submissions came from Camp Grimes, where the storm left a deep impact.
The scout camp had already begun cleanup efforts after the storm, removing and burning dangerous debris in an effort to make the property safe.
“Life has a way of giving you some enormous challenges,” he said. “It all depends on how you face them. When the storm happened, I was like, ‘Hey, I have to clean it up. We have to be open for summer camp for the kids.’”
“I cannot express how happy I was to get the call that we were approved and the Corps of Engineers was coming,” he added. “We were burning debris over the winter to get rid of it, and that makes me real nervous in the middle of the woods with risk of wildfires.”
Now, Camp Grimes is on track to fully reopen by June 1. One troop has already stayed overnight and soon there will be 400 Cub Scouts arriving for a major weekend event.
“Two weeks ago I got a portion of the camp safe enough to let overnight campers come back in, and I’ve had one troop come in for that,” Williams said. “That was a huge milestone.”
The work at Camp Grimes is a clear example of the broader impact of the mission.
“The Boy Scout camp is a very unique project,” Cardwell said. “I can only imagine, without this work being done, they would’ve either had to cancel events this summer or alter them significantly. But that’s not going to be the case for the Boy Scouts because of the efforts of the PPDR program.”
Cardwell hopes the McDowell model, in which the same contractor handles ROE intake and debris removal, will serve as a blueprint for future recovery efforts.
“This is going to be a benchmark,” Cardwell said. “I think this is going to be an example that is utilized in future contracting mechanisms.”
From the first meeting to boots on the ground, it took only 60 days to begin debris removal in McDowell County.
“If we’re going with contractors outside of the Corps — say, a local city, county, or state entity hires that contractor — it puts too many layers in between and increases the time frame,” Cardwell explained.
For Ranger Williams, the story comes full circle. He now encourages other property owners to take advantage of the program while work continues.
“I’ve already been telling other people I run into with concerns about debris on their property to go see Terri,” he said. “They’re here to help.”
And for the camp ranger who calls Camp Grimes home, that help has made all the difference.
“Every person out here helping us — I think they believe in what they’re doing,” Williams said. “They’re motivated to get this done and I could not be more appreciative.”
| Date Taken: | 04.22.2025 |
| Date Posted: | 04.22.2025 11:12 |
| Story ID: | 495859 |
| Location: | NORTH CAROLINA, US |
| Web Views: | 26 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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Army Corps of Engineers
Disaster relief
Community relations (COMREL)
