Two Things: City backs off White Street option for contaminants; Flood survivor recounts a harrowing day so his community is not forgotten

Happy Friday. You made it.

GREENSBORO — If the news that local officials have decided against dumping tons of contaminated dirt in the White Street landfill is any indication, City Hall can indeed be conquered — on occasion at least.

Who knew?

Phil Fleischmann, the director of Greensboro's Parks and Recreation Department, said Thursday that White Street is no longer an option for disposing of soil scraped up from Bingham Park.

And why perchance does that seem like a big deal?

Because in this instance, Gate City officials listened to nearby residents who've said from the outset that they were concerned about potential health effects from being exposed to lead, arsenic and Lord only knows what other heavy contaminants removed from Bingham Park.

"There were significant concerns that were relayed and really, essentially lots of very significant concerns and feelings related to the concern of reopening the White Street Landfill for this project-specific waste," Fleischmann said.

We hear you.

Of course, there's the little matter of why Bingham Park was built in the first place.

City officials, in what remains a head-scratcher, decided in the mid-70s that it'd be a swell idea to put a park on land that was an unregulated landfill for at least 30 years.

Of course Bingham Park is in a predominantly Black neighborhood. So is the White Street Landfill.

Moving tons of dirt laced with contaminants from one neighborhood to another — over the objections of residents who know the history well — would have been a bad look. A modern Marie Antoinette: Let them live next to contaminants.

The city closed Bingham Park in the spring once officials decided to get serious about clean-up efforts. Previously, the parks department had merely warned visitors to stay out of streams and not to disturb the soil.

So now that officialdom has shown that City Hall can indeed be swayed, they'll have to consider other options.

Flood survivor shares his story

BOONE - Josh Tippel is lucky to be alive. He knows it, his friends know it and his family does, too.

The day Hurricane Helene dumped more than a foot of rain on already sodden mountain communities, Tippel was trying to get home from work and beat the worst of it.

He never made it.

Instead, he found himself trapped by an angry flash flood. Rocks and debris pummeled his car. The narrow road on which he was stuck began to crumble, pieces tumbling down the mountainside.

He was, by his own estimation, maybe 2 feet from being washed away. Tippel and frantic onlookers called 911 repeatedly but water-rescue squads had been overwhelmed past their ability to immediately respond.

As he waited, Tippel climbed on top of his car and began texting goodbyes to his loved ones "just in case I never got another chance to."

More than two weeks have passed and mountain towns are still struggling.

More than 100 died in western North Carolina and 92 others are considered missing in what is by far the worst natural disaster in state history.

Rescue operations have wound down, and attention has turned to opening roads, getting those displaced somewhere warm and distributing basic supplies.

Tippel knows that, too.

He and many, many others need all the help they can get — and they will for the foreseeable future.

Because of that, Tippel has started sharing his story. He doesn't want those of us who've only read snippets about what happened to forget about them.

"Honestly ... I didn't even realize the extent of his ordeal until I read his account," said Kristi Vestal Maier, who co-owns with her husband a company called Enviroguard in Banner Elk where Tippel works.

Early Friday, Helene didn't look like anything particularly unusual. "It had rained a lot in the days before but that morning it felt like a regular storm," Maier said.

As the day went on, however, the rain kept falling. The Maiers texted their six employees and told them to sit tight while they checked the roads.

But Tippel had already left.

The road along a mountain ridge started to flood — with him on it — and he decided that if he couldn't turn around, he at least needed to stop. The farther downhill he went, the higher and faster the water would be.

He was trapped by an unnatural river that hadn't been there minutes before.

"One more large rock, one more chunk of asphalt, one more strong gust of wind could have sealed my fate," Tippel wrote on social media.

The water continued to rise, and he moved to the top of his car. He knew he couldn't walk or swim through the torrent, so he waited for a swift-water rescue team.

The two longest hours of his life passed before Watauga County firefighters could reach the spot.

"It took another hour to figure out a plan of how to get a harness to me so I could be pulled across the river," he wrote. "When I finally reached safety unharmed and the adrenaline began to wear off, I started to fully grasp the miracle I had just experienced."

City Editor