Twenty-five residents of Camelot Village in Chapel Hill are staying in nearby hotels being paid for by the local governments following displacement from flood damage sustained during Tropical Depression Chantal. But the group is facing a looming deadline for when the initial funding runs out. And not only are the flood victims struggling to figure out where to go after the hotel, but some report slow responses from their landlords and hurdles to being repaid for their unlivable rental units.
Before Chantal’s floods wrecked his apartment, Dale Weldele rented at Camelot Village for more than two years. He said he enjoyed the neighborhood and proximity to amenities like Chapel Hill’s Community Center Park and nearby businesses. But Weldele, who wears a prosthetic on his left leg, said he could have died in his home if neighbors had not helped him the night of July 6.
“My prosthetic came off in the current, I couldn’t stand against the water,” he said of his attempt to leave the building. “So, I’m on one leg with crutches trying to make it to the stairs through the whole thing…by the grace of God, I made it there. [But I] lost everything. There was four feet of water in the apartment, everything got destroyed.”…