A Year After Chantal, Durham’s Old Farm Neighborhood Is Still Recovering

At about 2:30 a.m. on July 6, 2025, Jameka Autry awoke to a frantic call from her neighbor. Floodwater had pooled into their house, they said, and Autry and her mother, Winona, needed to leave fast in case their home was next. 

Autry, still half asleep, opened the back door of her house on Peppercorn Street.

“There was no porch. There were no steps. We were literally surrounded by water and couldn’t get out,” she said. After dialing 911 twice, Autry and her mother were rescued by boat before the floodwaters rushed into their home. The next day, it was gutted. Overwhelmed by repair costs, she and Winona had to sell the house in November.

Every Old Farm resident remembers the exact early-morning moment when they learned Tropical Storm Chantal’s floodwaters were violently rushing their tranquil neighborhood in North Durham. For many, like Autry, it was the last time they saw their homes intact. For some, it was the last time they lived there at all. 

“You literally just see your house, your childhood house, torn down to nothing. You have to throw out all of your furniture, and it’s a devastating experience. I wouldn’t wish it on most people, probably not even my worst enemy,” Autry said.

Nearly a year later, Old Farm is still in disaster response mode. Some residents remain displaced from their homes; with Chantal leaving structural damage and mold in its wake, homeowners scrambled (and are still scrambling) to find somewhere habitable to stay throughout repairs.

Others, many of whom had lived there for more than four decades, sold their longtime homes to eager real estate investors, unable to shoulder the financial burden of repairs—an onus compounded by a lack of federal aid, meager state grants, and outdated floodplain maps that left some without flood insurance. Driving around Old Farm today, some houses are boarded up and stagnant, as if they hadn’t been touched since July. Repair vans are haphazardly parked about the winding streets—both to fix up the homes of remaining residents and to make others that were bought by LLCs look polished, bright-white new, and unrecognizable.

Chantal’s Long, Ongoing Aftermath

Tropical Storm Chantal unleashed historic rainfall in isolated pockets of central North Carolina. The sliver of Durham County that Chantal hit, and hit hard, was Old Farm and River Forest, two adjacent historically Black neighborhoods along the Eno River, which rose to a record high due to the storm. The streets of Old Farm transformed into turbid, rushing waterways, claiming cars and the bottommost levels of many homes—leaving residents stranded at the mercy of water rescue boats. More than 100 Durham residents (mainly in Old Farm and River Forest) were water rescued, while others, like Morgan Fielding, had to shelter in place to wait out the flood.

Fielding, a remote tech worker in her 40s, joked wryly that on the day Chantal hit, she learned she wasn’t someone who did well in an emergency. Lying in bed that night, she knew the power had gone out when her white noise machine cut off abruptly. Fielding was fully prepared to roll over and go back to sleep but was jolted wide awake the moment her partner, Neal Smith, told her there was water pooling into their basement. Smith, whom Fielding commended for being calm under pressure, immediately started hauling their belongings up to the second floor.

“I remember standing at the top of the stairs. It’s pitch black, and there’s probably a foot and a half, two feet, of muddy water sloshing through downstairs. And I just couldn’t rationalize that that was happening inside of our home,” Fielding said, becoming sullen as she recounted the event and stroked one of her cats who leapt onto their wooden dining room table—two surviving reminders of her home as it was before the flood. 

Senior residents, some with disabilities, were especially vulnerable to the sudden and rushing floodwaters. Tanya Exum-Coston lives in the southernmost part of the neighborhood, but the home of her elderly parents, Walter and Marilyn Exum, who had lived in Old Farm since the ’70s, sits farther north, right on the riverbank. Though just a 10-minute walk away, she realized she couldn’t get to them; neither could swim, and her father used a walker at the time.

“I just kept calling and kept driving around to the various streets to where I could see down to their house, and calling my mom on the phone,” Exum-Coston said. She said they both huddled on their beds to wait for help, and after she notified emergency services, a rescue team saved her parents by boat—with a wheelchair for her father.

Floods from Chantal impacted 35 of the 462 homes in Old Farm, Starla Tanner, director of the city of Durham’s new Community Partnerships and Engagement Department, told the City Council during a May 18 update. In next-door River Forest, she said, 29 of 169 homes were affected. 

Tanner said the most prevalent kinds of damage are structural, interior, and utility-related. Mold and poor indoor air quality are also concerns.

Of the impacted homes in Old Farm, she said residents had been able to repair and return to five, repairs were in progress at 10 (whether or not residents had returned), and residents had left eight, as of the May 18 update. The status of another 12 homes was unknown, meaning the city could not get in touch with residents, Tanner told the council.

As it stands, Tanner said at the meeting, repair efforts are being hindered by limited contractor availability, high costs, and bureaucracy that’s confusing and unfamiliar to residents trying to get financial aid and file insurance claims. 

Old Farm residents, for their part, told the INDY they feel forgotten—in media coverage, by their government, and by their fellow North Carolinians. Many wonder whether it’s because of the neighborhoods’ predominant population of Black and elderly folks, coupled with the comparatively low number of homes impacted.

“There’s been little in terms of resources for rebuilding after the initial phase, when we did have a large community effort towards cleaning out the homes,” Trey Gilmore, president of the Old Farm Neighborhood Association told the INDY. “Probably 75% or 80% of those affected by the flood were able to get some volunteer services for cleaning out the water and the mud after the flood, but when it came to the rebuilding, it was a drastic lack of support.”

What About Disaster Aid?

What hit Old Farm nearly as hard as Chantal itself was the resulting wave of displacement. A lack of direct federal aid, coupled with repair costs that outweighed available state grant money, meant residents who couldn’t afford to fix their homes were left with little choice but to move out of the tight-knit neighborhood where they had grown up, raised their children, and built their lives. Others moved in with family or friends or stayed in their damaged homes amid the repair process. 

Their experiences echo those of North Carolinians in other parts of the state, who have seen similar barriers to aid in the wake of flooding. State recovery efforts following hurricanes Matthew and Florence in 2016 and 2018 were plagued by delays, while federal and state aid have been painstakingly slow to arrive in Western North Carolina communities devastated by Hurricane Helene in 2024, The Assembly and ProPublica have found.

Old Farm is the kind of place residents live for generations and pass down their homes to their children with a sense of pride. But most of those who sold their homes received the price of the flood-damaged versions due to a lack of funding for federal, state, or city buyouts.

Of those who had to leave permanently, some were eligible for state aid and federal loans from the Small Business Administration, but some weren’t; some had flood insurance for homes in a designated floodplain, but houses right across the street didn’t have the same protection. Chantal’s destruction and resulting financial strain didn’t spare those who had done the “right things” to prepare or respond.

Though it’s the most intuitive funding stream for disaster aid, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) was no help to Old Farm residents. Chantal impacted fewer than 500 homes total, meaning it didn’t meet the minimum threshold for direct, individual assistance—so the state didn’t request it. FEMA did reimburse municipalities and counties to the tune of $32 million for emergency response spending after the Trump administration declared Chantal a major disaster in September—two months after it hit. But the city of Durham couldn’t use federal dollars to purchase impacted homes from Old Farm and River Forest residents, leaving many to list on the private market.

Residents were eligible for state grants after Chantal, though the money was slow to come through. As of early December, Old Farm residents hadn’t received any state grant money, The 9th Street Journal previously reported—even if they got through the arduous paperwork and back-and-forth with state caseworkers. Fortunately for some, the grant money—at most $43,600 per household—did arrive beginning later that month. 

The state disbursed more than $4.6 million to North Carolinians affected by Chantal, Justin J. Graney, a spokesperson for the North Carolina Department of Public Safety’s emergency management division, wrote in a statement to the INDY. 

But not everyone in that unlucky portion of North Durham got help. Graney wrote that 36 State Individual Assistance applications were denied in Durham County, “with the most common reasons for denial being that the applicant had a duplication of benefits, meaning they had benefits from insurance or another source.”  

Eleven of these denials were appealed, with seven eventually granted once applicants provided the required documentation. The Department of Public Safety attempts to work with residents “whenever possible,” he added. (Data on how applications broke down specifically in Old Farm was not available.)

Exum-Coston’s parents were among those who applied but were denied money. Since the Exums’ home was in the floodplain, they did have flood insurance, though the coverage was not quite enough to pay for all the damage and loss (state aid is secondary, so it would have covered what insurance didn’t). The couple is repairing their home with plans of returning but, in the meantime, is renting another house nearby—paying for two homes at once. 

Exum-Coston said that now they are “fighting against time” to repair their home before their lease, or money, runs out. 

“That is a significant cost if you’re paying probably $2,000 in rent a month for over a year for retired people who are in their 80s,” Exum-Coston said. “And both my parents are retired schoolteachers, so they don’t have tons of money to spend on these costs.”

For Fielding and Smith, the cost of repairing the ground and first floors of their home, plus replacing items they lost, amounted to about $75,000. About half is covered by the $43,600 in state assistance. The rest, they’re paying out of pocket. The financial burden has meant they had to give up on trying to have a child through IVF treatments.

“We bought this house thinking we would have a family in it. And then now to think, ah, we might not have a family because of this house,” Fielding said.

A Neighborhood Forever Changed, Again

The displacement Old Farm residents have experienced in the wake of Chantal is reminiscent of the reason why many families set roots in the neighborhoods at all.

Built throughout the ’60s and ’70s, Old Farm spawned from the implementation of urban renewal—which built the Durham Freeway directly through Durham’s Black Wall Street and Hayti neighborhood, pushing Black working-class families out of the prosperous district and leaving them to seek community elsewhere. For some, that happened to be in a neighborhood right along the banks of the Eno River, partially situated in a FEMA-designated floodplain. 

The Old Farm Neighborhood Association’s website states the migration was “a movement that allowed many youths reared in Old Farm, now (40-60-year-olds) to proudly boast of an incredible childhood and a village that still consists of many of those amazing parents today.”

We bought this house thinking we would have a family in it. And then now to think, ah, we might not have a family because of this house.

old farm resident morgan fielding

Since Chantal inundated the neighborhood, nearly 15 homes in Old Farm have been sold, many to LLCs for far less than their assessed pre-storm value. Some have already been flipped and sold or sit on the market—a couple of them with their once-rouge-colored brick exteriors painted a stark white.

Resident Carolyn Young’s home on Rippling Stream Road, for example, sold for $190,000 but had an appraised value of $266,550 before the flood. A few houses down, another home—appraised at $274,918—sold for $140,000. Real estate listing sites peg their estimated market value right before Chantal at about $332,600 and $324,400, respectively. 

Shala Perla, who is still in the midst of repairing her home’s shed and fencing, said she has watched gentrification sweep Durham and is sure Old Farm is next. 

“I mean, Old Farm has a history. It is clear who lived over here on this land and who tilled the soil,” Perla said. Still, she can’t fathom why real estate investors have already started to drop hundreds of thousands of dollars on homes in and near a flood zone.

“It’s just interesting to me how they could just build there now, knowing what happened,” she said. “And I’m like, ‘Who’s gonna buy houses? Are they even gonna tell them?’”

Even though Young, a retired Durham Public Schools teacher, sold her home of 50 years at a loss after the flood, she still serves as a treasurer for the Old Farm Neighborhood Association, collecting dues to help keep it running. For her and some of her close-knit, elderly neighbors, being forced to leave after Chantal wrecked their homes was, at that point in their lives, devastating, Young said. 

She also still dotingly calls her former Rippling Stream Road home “my house.” She spoke at length about the good care she took of it, whether she was painting, fixing things on her roof, or tending her garden’s bright green grass and lush flowers. 

“We’re supposed to be able to just go work in our yards, go work in our gardens, sit down on our patio, sit down on our decks. Do nothing if we want,” Young said.

Moving Forward

State Sen. Sophia Chitlik, a Democrat who represents North Durham, introduced a bill in April that would establish a $25 million Tropical Storm Chantal Mitigation Fund. The appropriation would let the state buy flooded properties in the absence of federal buyout funding and provide eligible residents in Durham, Alamance, Caswell, Chatham, Moore, Orange, and Person counties with up to $500,000 for repair or relocation.

But, as Chitlik told the INDY, the bill is somewhat of a long shot. It can’t move forward until Republicans pass the very delayed state budget, which could mean years before residents see additional financial support. And some legislators are concerned that the state taking the unusual step of buying out properties sets a precedent that the General Assembly has to do FEMA’s job.

“I’ve been trying to advocate with my colleagues across the aisle that this is not precedent-setting. This is about a gap funding situation,” Chitlik said.

Gilmore, the neighborhood association president, said he has discussed forming a long-term recovery group with Chitlik and Tanner from the city of Durham. He is hoping to partner with nonprofits, faith-based organizations, and government agencies to meet the needs of Chantal survivors that remain unmet—such as pooling resources to assist with reconstruction and closing financial gaps. Tanner told the INDY that the idea is in its infancy, but that Durham is communicating with disaster response nonprofit Day One Relief about a potential partnership and that, in the meantime, the city will continue supporting Old Farm residents. 

A more permanent coalition would be ideal for Old Farm, where flooding is routine—whether during a heavy rain, Hurricane Fran in 1996, or Hurricane Florence in 2018. The tropical storm has stirred discomfort among residents about the very real possibility of a severe weather event happening again, the Eno River turning their quiet neighborhood streets into waterways and pulling their livelihoods downstream. As the weather gets warmer again, everyone is coping with it in different ways.

I feel like we are at the will of whatever happens.

old farm resident shala perla

Some have go bags packed or escape plans prepped in case they need to flee in the middle of the night again. Fielding is trying not to think about it too much and fights the urge to live with caution. Now that the neighbors all know each other a little better after leaning on each other to recover from Chantal, Fielding said it feels good to spend time with them for cookouts or movie nights in spaces that once evoked fear. With each day, they get further away from that night that was full of it.

Perla, despite her reverence for the community, is antsy to leave. Her husband is a war veteran, who she said was shaken by the sudden flood. Her stepfather, who has an autoimmune disorder, had to move out due to mold and air quality risks. But their recently repaired home is still a place of solace for her husband and son, so she isn’t looking to sell quite yet—though that could change if another storm like Chantal hits.

“I feel like we’re at the will of whatever happens,” Perla said.

Comment on this story at [email protected].

Chitlik’s father-in-law, Adam Abram, is chair of the board of directors for The Assembly, which owns the INDY.