On the first anniversary of Hurricane Helene hitting western North Carolina, there was a general consensus on one issue surrounding the recovery efforts from the storm at a Joint Legislative Governmental Operations Subcommittee hearing on Wednesday: the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA)’s bureaucracy has been a hindrance, not a help.
“Our biggest obstacle moving forward is the lack of clarity and consistent guidance from FEMA,” said Avery County Commissioner Dennis Aldridge, who spoke at the hearing. “Every time we get close to the finish line, they change the goal posts. We’re willing to connect the dots, just don’t keep moving the dots, and every time that we get close, something changes.”
He said their county budget is $42 million. Debris removal has cost them $53 million, which has not been reimbursed, and FEMA has obligated only about $705,000, and another $5 million is being held in process, and that constant shifts in federal guidance are stalling projects.
Lynn Austin, manager for Yancey County, agreed with Aldridge, noting that they are a small county with a $37 million annual budget, and debris costs were $30 million. She said they only recouped $300,000.
Aldridge told lawmakers that the non-governmental agencies have been critical in the recovery process.
One of those is Samaritan’s Purse from Boone.
Luther Harrison, Samaritan’s Purse’s vice president of North American Ministries, said when the storm hit, they mobilized over 40,000 volunteers, flew 358 helicopter missions delivering over 800,000 pounds of supplies, and distributed 20,000 grocery and fuel gift cards.
The group has paid over 50 families’ mortgages, replaced over 200 vehicles, purchased more durable mobile homes, and is repairing and rebuilding homes and furnishing them with furniture.
“As in the Good Samaritan parable, as you go and do likewise to help your neighbor,” he said. “This is our neighborhood. A lot of our coworkers, a lot of our people that we grew up with were impacted by this. Samaritan’s Purse is in it for the long haul. We’re not going to leave until all the families are helped, and we’re still accepting applications.”
Other groups, such as Baptists on Mission, Lutheran Disaster Services, Mennonite Disaster Services, Habitat for Humanity, and the Amish, have also been an important part of the recovery process.
Austin praised the state’s Helene Cashflow Loan Program, through which they received around $8 million, and said they don’t know how they would keep their programs going without the assistance.
She and Aldridge agreed that another $10 million in loans would help with projects in their communities.
State Treasurer Brad Briner, whose office oversees the loan program, said they have allocated $150 million so far, but with initial disaster recovery estimates around $1 billion, another $850 million could definitely be helpful.
Aldridge also talked about another issue now that the autumn season has begun.
“We lost 40% of the standing timber in Avery County, so we have a fire load that is beyond comparison,” he said. “Our issue right now is access roads. There’s no way to get to the fire should one start, especially if they’re adjacent to a developed area, so that is a huge concern. We have one (fire) ranger in every county, and we are fighting to get more representation, but that is a major concern that we have going forward is the possibility of a horrific fire event.”
Aldridge also said that FEMA is also causing problems with what debris can and cannot be removed.
Hurricane Helene caused nearly $60 billion in damage.
According to Matt Calabria, Director for the Governor’s Recovery Office for Western North Carolina (GROW NC), while residents have been approved for $517 million in FEMA assistance, the state has only received a little over 10% in federal funding to cover damage from the storm after requesting 48%.
Democratic Gov. Josh Stein had made the point previously that it was the least amount of funding received for any hurricane that has hit the US, with Hurricane Helene being the fifth costliest of any hurricane since 2005. States normally receive between 40 and 50%.
Calabria criticized FEMA’s Hazard Mitigation Grant Program (HMGP), which is designed to buy out damaged homes. The federal government pays 75%, and the state pays the remaining 25%.
HMGP requires authorization on the front end, with US Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem instituting a signature requirement for all expenditures over $100,000.
He noted that applications for home buyouts were submitted to the federal government in February, and no homes have been approved for the HMGP program to date.
Calabria also said that the HMGP program doesn’t announce the amount of funding it will receive until a year out.
“I know you got to balance your budget, pass a budget by the end of June every year, and they’ve got Swiss cheese tax bases for the reasons we talked about,” he said, referring to county governments. “So, they don’t know what their fund balance is going to look like, they don’t know what their debt load is going to look like. They don’t technically know whether they’re going to be reimbursed how much and yet they’ve got to set tax rates and they don’t know what their tax base looks like because of HMGP delays and then on top of that they’ve got to worry about their bond rating which they would have had to worry about anyway when they’re talking about building schools or repairing facilities and that sort of thing.”
The discussion turned to how many homes have been built in the western part of the state.
Stephanie McGarrah, Deputy Secretary for the Department of Commerce’s Division of Community Revitalization, said the first one should be completed by January, noting that there has been a lot of red tape with the federal government.
That prompted Rep. Brendan Jones, R-Columbus, to ask if the General Assembly should start funding outside groups like Samaritan’s Purse and Baptists on Mission since they don’t have the same regulations and can build homes much faster.
Western North Carolina Recovery Advisor Jonathan Krebs said they already funding some of those organizations.
“I think it’s a very smart way to move forward with parts of the recovery that are difficult to get the federal government to buy off on or are intentionally slow,” he said. However, he would later caution that not every home could be completed that way.
Jones began and ended the hearing by blasting former Gov. Roy Cooper, a candidate on the Democratic ticket in the 2026 US Senate race, for his response to hurricane recovery not only for Helene but also for Hurricanes Florence and Matthew.
“Under Roy Cooper, Hurricane Matthew and Florence victims waited years for state agencies who buried them under paperwork, hid cost overruns, and left families stranded in motels and trailers,” he said. “Cooper’s delays and his mismanagement cost lives, wasted hundreds of millions of dollars that shattered the public trust, and because of that atrocity, we passed the Cooper Accountability Act because the General Assembly refused to let disaster be handled in the dark. You’ve been given the funding. We’ve given you the tools. We’re asking you not to repeat the failures of Roy Cooper.”
Jones also stated that although Stein inherited the issues, this is a chance for him and his staff to show that they won’t repeat the previous administration’s mistakes.
“To the families of western North Carolina, you are not forgotten. This General Assembly will stay in the fight until every home is rebuilt, every dollar is accounted for, and every promise is kept. I will not let another “Hurricane Cooper” under my watch.”
A Cooper campaign spokesperson responded to Jones’s comments in an emailed statement to Carolina Journal.
“Don’t take our word for it, Republicans think Michael Whatley has failed as FEMA recovery czar and over 100 Western North Carolinians have called for him to be replaced – nine months into the job and it’s clear Whatley can’t deliver for North Carolina,” the spokesperson said.
Editor’s Note: This story has been updated.