Streets flooded following Hurricane Chantal in 2025.
By: Violet Davis, Saul Janiak Stein & Nellie Purdy
July 6 felt like a normal summer evening for James Gore.
Gore, who graduated from Riverside in 2015, had seen plenty of summer storms. After watching the US-Mexico soccer match, he went to bed around midnight. But around 3 a.m., his fiancee woke him up. Their house had flooded.
“I looked outside the window, and I saw my car underwater,” said Gore. “At that point, we saw firefighters in boats with spotlights going around.”
The Eno had overflowed, and Gore’s house, located by the river in the Old Farm Neighborhood in Northern Durham, was surrounded by water, with some cars almost fully submerged.
“We had to evacuate our six pets, two grandparents, my in-laws, my sister-in-law, me, and my fiancee,” said Gore. “It took about three boat rides from the fire department to get us to safety.”
Gore was one of thousands of Triangle residents impacted by Tropical Storm Chantal. According to reports by the Orange County Emergency Operations Center, 448 homes were affected by the storm in Orange County alone, with 25 million dollars in damage countywide. After making landfall on the South Carolina coast, Chantal moved through North Carolina and into Virginia, where the storm dissipated.
The damage was unprecedented.
According to the North Carolina Geological Survey Section, the Eno River drains approximately 155 square miles of land from the surrounding basin. After tropical storm Chantal, the Eno didn’t only face direct rainfall, but also received a large influx of water from its many tributaries, such as the Little River, Flat River and Buckwater Creek. This led to increased turbidity, fallen trees, and erosion along its banks.
“It’s my understanding that between 8 and 12 inches of rain fell in just about 6 hours, and the river rose 20 feet in 4 hours,” explained Park Superintendent Kimberly Radewicz.
The water was still high for at least 24 or 36 hours,” said Eno River Association President Ryan Fehrman. “And then, when the water receded, we saw tons of damage.”
The immense amount of water ripped trees from banks, spread debris across the park, and deposited unusually large amounts of sand in many areas. Some areas, such as the Holden Mill trail, have to be permanently shifted due to the flooding. The floodwater caused property damage and significant sewage contamination in waters from Hillsborough to north Durham.
“Our house was not as bad off as some of the others in the neighborhood, down the street from us, where the river was closer to their houses,” Gore said. “They had to be completely gutted.”
Riverside gets its name from its location alongside a curve of the Eno River. Students, parents, faculty, and the broader Durham community all indulge in what the River and its wildlife have to offer. While the flooding at Riverside wasn’t as intense as Gore’s neighborhood, the storm disrupted students’ regular activities.
“[When] you go there, you can walk, you can hike, you can picnic, you can fish,” said Fehrman.
Chantal sent shockwaves through the community. Riverside students are accustomed to visiting the river throughout the year, but the flooding limited their access to many trailheads and water access points.
Students returned to parts of the Eno only to realize that many trails were closed, swimming spots off limits, and downed trees blocked the paths.
Some students, like senior Ben Hearn and former student Bram Slaughter, enjoy fishing around the Eno. Since the storm, their best spots aren’t the same.
“Sophomore year summer it could have been like two bass a day,” Slaughter said. “Now it’s practically unfishable.”
Hearn said he saw similar effects at other fishing areas, but the Eno was hit especially hard. Both students agreed that soon after the storm, trees were down along the path, water turbidity was much higher and currents were stronger.
They added that fishing spots like Crystal Lake in the Croasdaile neighborhood have effective drainage systems. However, during a storm, before the Eno can fully drain into Falls Lake, it receives a large volume of water in a short time, causing severe issues.
While some students enjoy the Eno for recreation, such as fishing and hiking, senior cross country runner Gwyneth Bernhardt relies on the trails for training and meets. “I really appreciate how close the Eno is to Riverside,” said Bernhardt. “It’s so nice to be able to take a hike during lunch or do a trail run at practice.” The fallen trees and disturbed ecosystems made running in areas that are blocked impossible, and the team had to find other areas for practice.
Others volunteer at the Eno. Senior Lucy Gray works with Conservation Corp North Carolina, an organization that partners with public land managers in North Carolina to build and maintain trails, repair ecosystems and improve park habitat.
Gray said that she and other students spent multiple days over the summer crushing gravel by hand and laying a path in 95 degree weather. However, in one night, the storm washed it all away.
“We had built this staircase right by the river, and the night the storm actually came, I didn’t remember it raining, but then it flooded,” said Gray. “It completely covered our staircase and took away all our gravel.”
Eno River State Park was unable to open many of their trails after Chantal. And still, in February, more than 7 months since the incident occurred, some trails are still closed because of the damage such as Cox Mountain Trail and Fanny Ford Loop.
Park staff, volunteers and other specialists have helped with repairs, but Radewicz said reopening the trails is not just about cleaning the woods.
“[The park] requires volunteers and rangers to go out and fix them [the trails], but [the trails] actually have to be rerouted, which involves [people from the] trail specialist section of state parks,” she said. “It also involves the biologists to come out to make sure that any reroutes that we’re doing fit within trail guidelines.”
Radewicz said about half of the work so far has been from volunteer help, and while the Park is planning on having more workdays in the future, she wishes that they had more volunteers.
While the Eno River State Park’s funding does not come from the federal government, Radewicz reported that FEMA intends to do an analysis and reimburse the park, as they are still facing current closures.
With so much land to cover, it takes a lot of time to complete the recovery process. But during that time, the whole community is awaiting the full rehabilitation of the beloved Park.
According to professor Scott Payne, a member of NC State’s Department of Parks, Recreation and Tourism Management, parks are vital to the communities they are in.
“[Parks] are the protected spaces that we have for future generations,” said Payne. “It’s not only something that you’re going to use and enjoy, but it’s there for your children to enjoy.”
And for park staff and community members alike, the repairs can’t happen soon enough.
“People come to the river, and you could just call it recreation, but I think it’s so much more than just, quote unquote, recreation,” Radewicz said. “This is where people go, to get away from the business of their lives, to recenter themselves.”
