Lake Norman Plug Overshadows Trump’s NC Survey Of Florence Damage

MOORESVILLE, NC — President Trump visited North Carolina on Wednesday to survey damage wrought by Hurricane Florence, but something he said about Mooresville during a live televised briefing while flanked by federal, state and local officials has created a minor media storm of its own.

Trump asked about his golf course.

Trump gave remarks during a briefing at Marine Corps Air Station Cherry Point alongside a panel of federal, state and local leaders. The Marine Corps air base is about two hours north of Wilmington.

During the briefing, Trump heard from numerous heads of federal and state agencies responding to the disaster, as well as local politicians and other stakeholders. Among them was Lynn Good, president, CEO and chairman of the board of Duke Energy. The power company had restored power for 1.5 million customers, she said, with 150,000 remaining.

“And how is Lake Norman, that area? How is it doing?” Trump asked her, according to a White House transcript of the event.

“Good,” she responding, adding that the Lake Norman area in Mooresville had received 10 to 12 inches of rain.

“I love that area. I can’t tell you why, but I love that area,” Trump said.

“It’s very nice. Thank you,” she said.

“It’s been really terrific,” Trump said

Given the gravitas of the occasion in a natural disaster that is being blamed for the loss of 27 lives and untold flood damage — and on a day when swift water rescue crews continued to search for survivors — it didn’t take long for Trump’s aside to take legs of its own.

“Trump’s storm ‘briefing’ in N.C. was surreal,” tweeted journalist Brett Kelman. “First, nobody briefed him; politicians mostly just thanked him. Second, he praised local officials for their ‘talent.' Third, he said we have the strongest economy ever. Fourth, he asked about Lake Norman, where his golf course is.”

In his remarks before the president, North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper laid bare devastation in the eastern region of the state, which bore the brunt of the hurricane’s force and flooding.

"Our rivers are still cresting and there is still danger for some people. We're hoping that they can get evacuated," he said.

"Our state took a gut punch," and is still reeling, Cooper said. "We lost 27 lives," farmers have lost crops, businesses are closed and people have lost their homes, Cooper said. More than 10,000 people remain in shelters, he said.

This is the second time Trump has touted his golf course in the last month. During a visit to Charlotte Aug. 31, he told an audience at Central Piedmont Community College, “I actually have investments in Charlotte,” The Charlotte Observer reported.

“They’ll say, oh, that’s a conflict of interest,” Trump said, according to the paper. “Fake news, they’ll say this is a conflict of interest. You know where my club is, right? Trump National. It’s a very big success on Lake Norman. Beautiful. Largest man-made lake in the world by far, right?”

Actually, not quite the largest, according to fact checkers. That distinction goes to Lake Kariba along the border of Zambia and Zimbabwe. In the U.S. Lake Mead in Nevada rates as the largest. And, as beautiful and expansive as it is, Lake Norman, as the newspaper points out, doesn’t even rate in the top 10 man-made lakes in the U.S.

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Photo: A car sits in a flooded parking lot on September 18, 2018 in Fayetteville, North Carolina. The Cape Fear river has reached its crest due to rains caused by Hurricane Florence which inundated the area with rain that caused concern for large scale flooding in the North Carolina and South Carolina area. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)