Governor's grant to repave Elizabethton detour streets

ELIZABETHTON — While Carter County is seeking reimbursements from the Federal Emergency Management Agency for the rebuilding and repairs of roads damaged by Hurricane Helene, the city of Elizabethton will be getting help from a different funding source, the Governor's Response and Recovery Fund. The governor's fund is designed to address unmet disaster recovery needs when traditional aid may not fully cover recovery costs. The fund is intended to support a broad range of recovery efforts, from immediate needs to longer term projects to ensure that affected areas across Tennessee have access to resources to recover as quickly as possible The streets of the Elizabethton and the roads of Carter County showed signs of significant damage and wear and tear after Hurricane Helene passed through the area on Sept. 27, 2024. But the reason why the city was not getting reimbursements directly from FEMA was because the city streets were not directly damaged by the storm. The damage was caused by unusually heavy traffic on those streets when the Broad Street Bridge was closed for repairs. The state funding made to Elizabethton was revealed during the December 2025 meeting of the Elizabethton City Council. There were four hazardous mitigation grants from the Governor's Response and Recovery Fund which the council unanimously approved. The grants will be used to purchase emergency equipment, purchase flood-prone properties from willing sellers, and repave downtown streets that took the brunt of the heavy traffic caused by the closure of the Broad Street Bridge for nine months. The grant to repave downtown city streets will be the most immediate and noticeable of the four grants. Elizabethton City Manager Daniel Estes explained to the council that the storm had a direct impact on many roads in the county, removing sections of the roads by having streams erode and undercut the road bed, having landslides take out sections of roads, and having bridges removed. The storm did impact city infrastructure, especially the Broad Street Bridge, which damaged by the flooding Doe River and had to be closed for several months for the Tennessee Department of Transportation to repair the bridge. While TDOT covered the costs of repairing the Broad Street Bridge, Estes told councilmen that the bridge closure caused the city's traffic patterns to be significantly changed. Instead of having six lanes of traffic going east and west across the two downtown bridges (Broad Street and Elk Avenue bridges). A lot of that traffic was detoured onto streets that were not designed to carry that much traffic. The result was the detour streets quickly began to wear out. "The damage to the streets was not directly caused by Helene, it was the detours from damage caused by Helene" Estes said. Whatever the reason, the city streets still needed to be repaired from the heavy traffic. With FEMA funds unavailable, the state stepped in with the Governor's Response and Recovery Fund. This fund was established to provide flexible, grant-based financial support to help communities, organizations, businesses, and landowners recover from disasters. The street resurfacing will have the most immediate impact on the city. The council voted in favor of a grant from the Governor's Response and Recovery Fund in the amount of $1,133,270.30. The staff is still assessing how many downtown roads can be resurfaced with the grant, but the hope is to use the funds to repave Sycamore Street, East E Street, and East Elk Avenue.The grant does not require a matching fund from the city. The Council also approved a Tennessee Emergency Management Agency Hazard Mitigation Grant for property acquisition. There are seven properties up for consideration, but the exact number of properties acquired by the city will not be known until all negotiations are conducted. Estes told the council that only property owners who voluntarily wanted to sell their land that is subject to flooding would be considered. No property owner would be forced to sell. But he said it is away for a property owner on such a flood prone property to get fair market value for the real estate. Estes said seven properties are currently on the list. Much of the land would be valuable to the city as extensions of city parks or bike trails. Unlike the street resurfacing grant, this one will require matching funds. It is likely the city would pay a 12.5% local match. The most conspicuous property on the list is the Tom Cowan law office property at 111 S. Main St. The appraised amount is $850,000. The city has already been in negotiations with the Cowan family because the property is adjacent to the Covered Bridge Park and would make the park more spacious and usable. Estes said negotiations are continuing. There is another property which would help expand another city park. That is the Stout Property at 226 North Riverside Drive. It has an appraised value of $425,000. That property sits on the northern boundary of Edwards Island City Park and would provide added space for future park facilities. Other properties on the list include 611 North East Street, appraised at $135,000; the property at 351 Race St., appraised at $25,000; the property at 391 Race St., appraised at $5,000; the property at 322 Race St., appraised at $4,000; and the property at 322 Race St., appraised at $1,000. Another grant approved by the council also brought back memories of the time when the Broad Street Bridge was closed by flood damage. The announcement of the closure and progress on the bridge was done with electronic message boards placed at the start of detours. These message board helped confused motorists know the problem and detour information. The city rented these electronic message boards at a cost of $400 per day. This TEMA Hazard Mitigation grant would provide $80,000 to purchase four of these electronic message boards. The fourth grant approved by council was a TEMA Harard Mitigation Grant to provide eight backup generators to city departments during severe storms. The grant would provide $1,157,071 to purchase the generators. The 25% local match would be $289,267.75. Six of the backup generators would go to the city's Water Resources Department to operate pumps when electrical power is lost. The other city operations that would receive backup generators are one for city hall and one for the Street and Sanitation Department.