North Carolina Straining to Fund Hurricane Relief Efforts Over Two Months After Helene

North Carolina Straining to Fund Hurricane Relief Efforts Over Two Months After Helene

The last time we checked on North Carolina, it dealt with the after-effects of the deadliest tropical storm in the state’s history – Hurricane Helene.

Much has happened in the nation and the world since then, but I thought doing a status check would be worthwhile.

Recovery efforts are ongoing, but many challenges remain. As we approach Christmas, the state is grappling with how to fund $53 billion worth of repairs to recover from the storm damage.

North Carolina expects the federal government and other private sector funding to provide about $19.9 billion in financial assistance, leaving over $30 billion in damages still uncovered.

On Oct. 9, North Carolina lawmakers passed a $273 million relief bill and a subsequent $604 million package that N.C. Gov. Roy Cooper signed into law Oct. 25. Legislators promised these packages would represent only the first steps toward disaster relief for North Carolinians suffering from the effects of Helene.

But as the immediate impacts of the storm fade, the ongoing recovery efforts have been met with political and financial struggles.

…According to Pryor Gibson, now-interim chief operating officer, the [North Carolina Office of Recovery and Resiliency (NCORR)] needs at least $40 million for each of the next three months to fund its projects. Without these funds, NCORR may not have the ability to continue supporting rebuilding efforts in still-recovering areas throughout the state.

Recently, a spokesperson for the Federal Emergency Management Agency, or FEMA, apologized for the agency failing to deliver dozens of travel trailers and manufactured homes to North Carolina residents displaced by Hurricane Helene. The “apology” came in response to Charlotte station WBTV grilling the representative about the lack of trailers being delivered to impacted families.

Our questions came after a FEMA spokesperson told WBTV the week of Thanksgiving that the agency would deliver a total of 103 temporary travel trailers and manufactured homes to families in North Carolina by the end of that week. At the time, FEMA had delivered 27 homes.

By Wednesday, Dec. 4, FEMA had still only delivered 46 homes — well short of the number of promised temporary homes.

WBTV learned that more than 500 families have been approved for a FEMA travel trailer or manufactured home in the wake of Helene. The agency’s slow deployment of the homes means hundreds of families are weathering the snow and freezing temperatures currently hitting the North Carolina mountains.

Despite that, a FEMA spokesperson initially struck an upbeat tune in an interview with WBTV on Nov. 26. The spokesperson then doubled down on a promise to deliver homes to the more than 500 families who have requested one.

“There could be 500 of these eventually given out?” a WBTV reporter asked.

“Here’s the beautiful part about it, the answer is ‘yes,’ and we’ve done even more. So we can handle it,” said FEMA Media Relations Specialist La-Tanga Hopes.

One suspects the agency’s response will be more robust after January 20th. Let’s hope the good people of North Carolina can hold out by relying on their neighbors.

As temperatures begin to drop for the season, residents told Bender that there are still people in need of a warm place to sleep.

Jenica Grooms owns a local auto body shop. But since Helene, she said she has shifted her focus to building temporary climate-controlled homes for people who are displaced.

“There has been a lack of temporary housing. There’s not a lot of places for people to go. Their hotel vouchers are running out. So our goal is to place these on people’s property.”

Important infrastructure still needs to be repaired. Two large railroad operators, CSX and Norfolk Southern, with hundreds of miles of track in Western North Carolina, were hit especially hard by storm damage.

Between Newport, TN, and Grovestone, Norfolk Southern estimates that line will reopen on March 31, 2025.

“We know firsthand at Norfolk Southern the critical role rail plays in connecting communities, and we continue to support ongoing recovery efforts,” said Norfolk Southern Vice President of Engineering Ed Boyle.

“Our work is not finished, but our railroaders on the ground are the best in the business, and I want to thank them for their dedication and hard work in getting as much of our network restored as quickly and safely as possible so that we can continue to provide access to communities and move the goods we all rely on.”

For CSX, repairs to their Blue Ridge Subdivision in WNC and Eastern Tennessee are also still ongoing.

Hopefully, President-Elect Donald Trump’s new Secretary of Transportation will focus more on restoring that infrastructure and less on diversity-equity-inclusion than his ridiculous predecessor. My sincere hope for Sean Duffy is that he is so competent that nobody will know his name when he wraps up his time in office.

Prayers continue for the good people of North Carolina as we head into Christmas week…especially the farmers selling all the beautiful Christmas trees.

As many as 30 million Christmas trees are sold each year across the country. About a quarter of them come from North Carolina, and nearly all of the state’s crop comes from the western region that was walloped by the storm.

…While many farms were able to salvage the trees that were ready for market, the loss of seedlings could spell trouble moving forward. It takes about a decade to cultivate a full-sized Christmas tree.

One farmer, fielding a series of consolation calls after the storm, had to make clear time and again to his customers that they could still buy trees this year from his farm.

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