For everything on this page, the need is documented and the project doesn't exist yet: three-quarters of a million homes, a rural hospital map that keeps shrinking, more high-hazard dams in poor condition than any other state, and water systems carrying $41 billion in documented needs. Each measure below names its dataset, its year, and what kind of number it is — counted, modeled, or assessed. The companion tally of what's actually underway is in What's Being Built: North Carolina.
How to read this page: the class chip on every measure is the honesty label. Counted = an inspection or enumeration record. Modeled = a study's projection or risk score — printed with the modeler's name. Assessed = a structured survey of required investment — needs as documented, not measurements of decay. Figures keep the form their source gave them; years are printed on every measure.
Click any category to expand it — every measure with its figure, what it means in plain language, and its source.
What's here: the headline measure(s) for each of the nine categories, from the authoritative datasets audited for this section (FHWA NBI, Sheps Center, Chartis, USDA ERS Atlas, EPA needs surveys via NC DEQ, Berkeley Lab, National Inventory of Dams, FCC/AddressNC, ASCE, TRIP, INRIX, NLIHC, and the NC Chamber Foundation housing study). 16 measures, each verified Oct 23, 2026.
Known gaps in this pass: county- and corridor-level detail (named bottleneck segments, county closure maps, tract-level food access) is Phase 2. The Sheps closure count (11) is the 2022 state compilation and will be re-verified against the live tracker; Chartis's 2026 edition had not published an NC split at build time, so the 2024 figure (19) stands labeled. The Duke Energy load forecast is news-reported from its NCUC filing and flagged as such in its row until the docket PDF is linked directly. One deliberate blank: no NC interconnection-queue figure is published, because Berkeley Lab publishes no usable NC breakout — the page says so instead of estimating one.
Not needs, and not here: anything already funded and underway lives in What's Being Built: North Carolina. When a need on this page gets a funded project, the measure stays visible with its edition year and gains a link to the project answering it.
Last updated: October 23, 2026. Figures are re-verified against their sources as new editions land.