Ep. 40 Judicial Recovery From Hurricane Helene

In this episode, Chancellor Jim Ripley and Judge Carter Moore of Tennessee's fourth judicial district sit down with host and Communications Director, Samantha Fisher to discuss the moments leading up to the storm striking East Tennessee. Judge Moore explains the effects on inmates in Cocke County and Chancellor Jim Ripley details the plans for his temporary courtroom. This episode also features information for litigants and lawyers in East Tennessee that may be helpful for future filings. 

Produced by Nick Morgan, Tennessee Administrative Office of the Courts

Transcript

00;00;00;18 - 00;00;05;19
Judge Moore
Before Helene even got there. The windless rain had settled over the county for about three days.

00;00;05;19 - 00;00;21;11
Narrator
The Tennessee Supreme Court hereby activates and promulgates a limited disaster plan for all the trial courts in first, second, third and fourth Judicial districts. Due to the severe flooding that occurred on September 26th and 27th, 2024.

00;00;21;12 - 00;00;23;14
Judge Moore
I'm okay, but my community is not.

00;00;23;15 - 00;00;40;03
Narrator
The court grants a 45 day extension of mandatory deadlines contained in the Tennessee Rules of Civil Procedure. The Tennessee Rules of Criminal Procedure, the Tennessee Rules of Juvenile Practice and Procedure, the Tennessee Rules of Appellate Procedure, and other applicable court rules.

00;00;40;06 - 00;00;41;17
Chancellor Ripley
My courtroom is gone.

00;00;41;21 - 00;00;47;24
Judge Moore
They're just piles of their life time of memories, sitting beside the highway like a pile of trash because it's ruined.

00;00;48;00 - 00;00;57;13
Narrator
This 45 day extension applies to any document that would have been due to be filed in the courts of the first, second, third, and fourth Judicial districts.

00;00;57;14 - 00;01;06;22
Chancellor Ripley
At the point that they reached Newport. They are considered to be category three waters, which means they need to be dealt with as if they were raw sewage.

00;01;06;24 - 00;01;19;05
Narrator
Orders of protection and temporary injunctions that would otherwise expire between September 26th and November 12th, 2024 are hereby extended until November 12th, 2024.

00;01;19;05 - 00;01;26;28
Judge Moore
Something that I have seen throughout this is the neighbors getting together and helping people like you've never seen before.

00;01;27;01 - 00;01;51;00
Host
The remnants of Hurricane Helene brought a tremendous amount of damage to East Tennessee. Cocke County was under a state of emergency, and downtown Newport was evacuated. The aftermath has had an impact on everything everyday life, business and of course, day to day court operations. Hello and welcome to Tennessee Court Talk, a podcast produced by the Administrative Office of the Courts.

00;01;51;03 - 00;02;17;07
Host
I'm Samantha Fisher, Communications Director, and we are joined by Chancellor Jim Ripley, Presiding Judge of the Fourth Judicial District and Judge Carter Moore. And the Fourth Judicial District in Tennessee includes Sevier County, Jefferson County, Granger County, and, of course, Cocke County, which was the hardest hit. Gentlemen, thank you so much for coming on the podcast. Just to start off, can you tell us how are things presently going?

00;02;17;07 - 00;02;19;13
Host
We're recording this podcast in mid-October.

00;02;19;20 - 00;02;57;03
Chancellor Ripley
First of all, several of those counties that you mentioned, Sevier, Jefferson, Granger, Granger was affected, but, of of those counties, Cocke County was the worst. By far. Newport and Carter, my colleague here is, from Cocke County. Newport is situated, very close to both the French Broad River and the pigeon River. And, it was totally inundated with water and, it was a very, very scary situation.

00;02;57;03 - 00;03;14;24
Chancellor Ripley
But, you know, much of that weather went to the east, so western North Carolina obviously was horribly affected by it. But several of our counties are pretty much unscathed. So it's a good thing.

00;03;14;26 - 00;03;16;25
Host
Judge Moore, can you tell us what this was like?

00;03;16;26 - 00;03;36;17
Judge Moore
There had been reports, you know, on the weather, that warning of potential flood situations coming up. And before Helene even got there, it's just like a a windless rain had settled over the county for about three days and everything was already on the ground. Swales were filling up. You know, at that point there's no where to put it.

00;03;36;17 - 00;03;57;12
Judge Moore
And then the remnants of the hurricane hit. Yeah. And they had been hitting the night before, and I expected a major flood the next morning. And, I live on the property I live in. There's a trout stream called Indian Camp Creek that runs through it, and it was as high as I'd ever seen it. And it runs into Cosby Creek down the road from me.

00;03;57;17 - 00;04;32;26
Judge Moore
And my mother lives on that creek. She's 73 years old and says, as high as had ever seen it. Wow. And the road to her house was blocked for me. I couldn't get to her at the time and she was fine. She was on high ground, but a lower part of the road was completely blocked off. And, and I was just worried to death about what would have, what was going to become of the folks closer to the pigeon River, which Cosby Creek flows into, and let alone I didn't know about the devastation along the French Broad as well at the same time, which the pigeon runs into and the Delta Chuck you also

00;04;32;26 - 00;04;59;04
Judge Moore
runs into it. And to my understanding, in this part of the country, those were the three main watersheds that were hurt the most. You hear about the devastation in Asheville and so on and so on, so on and so forth. Those are watersheds that feed the French Broad, which runs through Cork County. And then, you know, the pigeon headwaters or above Waynesville, North Carolina, which feeds into the middle part of Cork County and runs through downtown Newport.

00;04;59;06 - 00;05;05;03
Host
What kinds of things were you hearing from from neighbors or, you know, colleagues? You you obviously have deep roots in this area.

00;05;05;10 - 00;05;38;26
Judge Moore
In real time. I wasn't really able to talk to any colleagues because there were phone satellite failures. I could text somewhat at my house, but couldn't really make a call for days. But, several, individuals, my, my judicial brothers and sisters reached out with offers of help to, me and my fellow colleagues in our district, all the way up to Chief Justice Kirby sent me a personal message, and I appreciate that with an offer of help.

00;05;38;28 - 00;05;53;23
Judge Moore
Some of them were I wasn't able to communicate with. I don't know if it was somebody's phone service or not. And they would call another judge friend and say. And they were able to get through. I remember I'll. I'll name names Bill Cole. They called me and, or tried to text me and I tried to text back and it wouldn't send.

00;05;53;23 - 00;06;16;01
Judge Moore
Sometimes that wouldn't happen. And then Shane Sexton had been dispatched to make sure I was okay by Bill Cole as well. I can't communicate with him, but you can let him know that. Yeah, that I'm okay, but my community is not at this point, something that I have seen throughout. This is the, neighbors getting together and helping people like you've never seen before in Cocke County.

00;06;16;01 - 00;06;43;22
Judge Moore
It's amazing because we have several communities that sit low along the pidgeon and the Denton community and the advent of Community Hartford, where you hear about a lot of whitewater rafting. They were underwater and just had to have catastrophic damages to the businesses and homes along the pidgeon there. And there and then in downtown Newport, so much of it is sitting so low that, a lot of it was destroyed or rendered unusable.

00;06;43;24 - 00;06;45;29
Judge Moore
Like Chancellor Ripley’s courtroom.

00;06;46;00 - 00;07;12;01
Chancellor Ripley
Right. So, my courtroom was in what they call the annex building, which is some distance from the main courthouse, cross railroad tracks, but but much closer to the water to the river. And it's it's a total loss. The the building was actually shifted on its foundation, resulting in a big crack through the, masonry in the rear of the building.

00;07;12;03 - 00;07;27;03
Chancellor Ripley
It housed my courtroom and the offices of my clerk and master, Craig Wild. And, unfortunately, it also housed the majority of the prisoners in Cocke County.

00;07;27;03 - 00;07;34;26
Judge Moore
I don't this is not a solid number, but I would say 80 to 90%. And I should call the sheriff, but it's it's most, go ahead to answer.

00;07;34;28 - 00;08;05;13
Chancellor Ripley
So, you know, they, they, summons the, busses, I guess school busses and, and and were able to get the prisoners, moved and they moved them to Sevier County and Jefferson and Jefferson County. But the building is a total loss. It in the basement area of that building is the archives generally for the county, for Cocke County, and and for my court, the clerk and master Craig.

00;08;05;13 - 00;08;28;05
Chancellor Ripley
Wow. Great man. And he really, really, rose to the occasion in this case, but he called me, said Chancellor, we've got a real problem here because, we can move our offices, but these records are just, you know, they're in feet of mud. And so I said, well, let me let me come look at it.

00;08;28;05 - 00;09;03;22
Chancellor Ripley
So I got my boots and mask. And you've got to understand that the waters that came down, through these rivers at Carter mentioned at the point that they reached Newport, they are considered to be category three waters, which means they need to be, dealt with as if they were raw sewage. Okay. Okay. So, the basement of this building had been completely filled with water and mud and silt and and, it was just, it was a terrible mess.

00;09;03;22 - 00;09;10;21
Chancellor Ripley
It smelled terrible. It just it was just off. And my initial thought was, well, we can't do anything. We can't save these records.

00;09;10;28 - 00;09;14;12
Host
When you when you talk about records, are you talking about paper records and boxes?

00;09;14;12 - 00;09;41;19
Chancellor Ripley
Yes, yes. Big volumes of of, of dockets and records going back, oh, into the 70s in some cases. And, and some of them had been in boxes that were sitting on top of filing cabinets. So when it filled with water, these boxes overturned and, you know, there was mud in there that was a ten inches deep.

00;09;41;21 - 00;10;05;29
Chancellor Ripley
And so, as I said, my initial thought was, this isn't something we can salvage, you know? And, but Cocke County has an archivist, who is responsible for the records. And he said, you know, we just we've got to talk to the state archivist about it. So we did. And the state, said, look, you know, we're going to have to try to salvage those records.

00;10;06;01 - 00;10;36;11
Chancellor Ripley
And, I knew nothing about that. The archivist indicated that there'd been big flooding in Nashville, which I remember ten years. Yeah. They be covering up. Yep, yep. And, she indicated that they used a company that comes in and freeze dries the records. They put them in in tractor trailer trucks that are freezers. And they freeze dry the records and once that's accomplished, then they can clean them.

00;10;36;14 - 00;11;11;02
Chancellor Ripley
Once they've got them dried, dried off. The problem is, it's a very, very expensive operation, as you can imagine. And, you know, a county such as Cocke County that's confronted with this disaster to begin with is strapped for money as a result. And now they're looking at, having to deal with these records. So it's it's that's a tough situation, but we moved, the clerk and master's office up to a, a space in a strip mall.

00;11;11;04 - 00;11;42;25
Chancellor Ripley
And, they've done a remarkable job. They're working off of tables and stuff in there, and they they're set up and so that we can take filings, you know, people need to get their complaints filed in their in their documents filed. So fortunately, the Supreme Court handed down an order that gave us some relief, with regard to statutes, statutes of limitations and things like that, which Justice Kirby, Chief Justice Kirby reached out to me as she did to Carter and was just great.

00;11;43;03 - 00;12;04;26
Chancellor Ripley
You know, she said, what can we do? What can we do to help you guys over there? But I was worried about the lawyers because I know the anxiety of professional responsibility to get things filed in a timely fashion. And, and I was concerned about that. And for days, we didn't have an office. We didn't have a place where you could go to file your complaint.

00;12;04;26 - 00;12;31;00
Chancellor Ripley
So, she has indicated to me that the Supreme Court is 100% on board with helping us. So I think if that if that time period lapses and we need more time, we'll get it. And that's the way it should be. People shouldn't be, through no fault of their own, deprived of their ability to access the courts because of a natural disaster.

00;12;31;00 - 00;12;53;27
Chancellor Ripley
I mean, it just should shouldn't happen. And she recognized that. The court recognizes that. So I think we're in good shape in that regard. And it was it was very heartening to to hear from her. My courtroom is gone. So so we're going to hold court in the Newport Utilities building, and I have no idea what this will look like.

00;12;53;27 - 00;13;14;25
Chancellor Ripley
I don't know, you know, do they have rooms big enough to seat all of the litigants and witnesses and so forth? But but we'll make it work. As I said, my clerk and master over there is very resilient guy and very determined guy, and and, we'll get it done. We have to.

00;13;14;27 - 00;13;27;08
Host
Judge Moore, do you have any thoughts about, you know, just sharing your experience with, with other judges, anything that, you know, just about looking ahead or how to be prepared for something like this?

00;13;27;15 - 00;13;52;21
Judge Moore
This is the record high for the Pigeon and the French Broad and but I'm sure there are other buildings that are situated near water in the county seat of towns, just because that used to be one of the main travel was, you know, in the old days and that that people took goods and persons from point A to point B, and we were like that.

00;13;52;21 - 00;14;12;05
Judge Moore
And I mean, there had been minimal flooding in the past. I want to say that I'd always heard that we had had a few archival floods in the old days, well before mine and Chancellor Ripley's time, but now we had the world record flood. Or, you know, the river's record flood, if you will, is has had it has been.

00;14;12;07 - 00;14;38;11
Judge Moore
And I wish that we had an appropriate facility to hold our inmates. I do appreciate our sister counties, Sevier County and Jefferson County for what they're doing for me, because I generally cover the criminal docket in Cocke County. So these are people are going to have to be transported multiple times each month to, to come and have court in Cocke County.

00;14;38;13 - 00;15;11;19
Judge Moore
And for how long. I don't know. So that's that's, that's been one of the parts that I've been worried about, you know, in Sevier County’s in the process right now, building the Justice Center, it's not ready yet, but and like I said, I appreciate Sheriff Hodges and Sheriff Coffee and Sevier in Jefferson County, but because I know they have to be burgeoning with their own citizens there to take home, like I said, the vast majority of my prisoners actually haven't held criminal court in that county since this.

00;15;11;22 - 00;15;36;29
Judge Moore
I've held recovery court in Cocke County. And our newest Judge, Adrian Waters Ogle, has had a civil court date. After we got the water situation straightened up in in Newport. Haven't gone back to school yet. Yeah, it actually worked out well. I'm, my brother is the Superintendent of schools in Cocke County, so he's been on the ground dealing with a lot of this as well.

00;15;37;01 - 00;15;54;22
Judge Moore
And, he said that fall break turned out this year to be at a fortunate time. They cancel school the week after the flood, and then they had Fallbrook to try to get water back on to every and make sure that, yeah, they can get children to school. Yeah. And rural districts like up and Del Rio and the old 15th.

00;15;54;22 - 00;16;05;16
Judge Moore
It's got a body of water next to it coming in the Del Rio. And various other places where there's a lot of water run through Cocke County. And there was before this, and.

00;16;05;18 - 00;16;44;22
Chancellor Ripley
Lots of water, but no water to drink. Yeah. You know, and that's that's a terrible situation. And, and, and there were a number of, of places around that were receiving water and it was coming from everywhere. People were, you know, really, really, giving, of their resources in that regard. But it's just, you know, can't take a shower, you can't flush toilet, you can't, you know, we take things for granted and, and this brought home, the fact that we shouldn't do that.

00;16;44;24 - 00;17;14;20
Judge Moore
That's right. My wife has been, you know, she's had, of course, throughout this. She's really been a a trooper getting out and helping people. And I've tried to help her some help some other folks along the way that I could in any way. And just the day after the waters receded, she say she spent the last two weeks there handing out water and marking in churches or, you know, cleaning out mud and people's lost, the things they've lost in their homes that are just, you know, beyond repair.

00;17;14;27 - 00;17;37;26
Judge Moore
Yeah. For example, if you drive through those communities, I'm talking about Edwina and Denton and around in there, they run close to the pigeon, and then it's ran through their homes. Hasn’t moved most of them. Some of them are either destroyed or off their foundations, but regardless, they are just piles of their belongings and their lifetime of memories sitting beside the highway like a pile of trash because it's ruined now.

00;17;37;28 - 00;17;53;04
Judge Moore
Oh, and I thank our County Mayor’s lining something up there's somebody in the county line, something up that people, you know, there's going to hire somebody to come through and gather all that up as opposed to flooding our local convenience centers in the.

00;17;53;07 - 00;17;54;04
Host


00;17;54;07 - 00;17;58;23
Judge Moore
And the landfill. And I don't even know what you do with all of it. There's just so much of it. So.

00;17;58;26 - 00;18;20;06
Host
Indeed a long road to recovery. But, you know, what I'm hearing is just, you know, incredible resilience, from you, Judge Moore and you and Chancellor Ripley and certainly the communities that that you're living in, it's it's hard to hear, but it's also inspiring. Well, we really appreciate you sharing this experience with us coming on Tennessee Court Talk and, updating us on the situation there.

00;18;20;06 - 00;18;29;19
Host
And, just thank you so much. We we appreciate what you've been able to share and what you've been able to do and remain in, public service and, and keeping the courts going.

00;18;29;21 - 00;18;30;22
Chancellor Ripley
Well, thank you.

00;18;30;25 - 00;18;31;18
Judge Moore
Thank you. Samantha.