North Carolina General Assembly (File Photo)
The sole grocery store in Rep. Dudley Greene’s hometown of Newland is closed.
It’ll be weeks before it reopens. Even if residents could make a trip there through debris and destroyed roads, there’s nothing to be had.
“There was not a corner of my district that was not impacted, if not decimated by this storm,” said Greene, a Republican representing portions of Avery, McDowell, Mitchell, and Yancey counties.
The North Carolina legislature unanimously approved a $273 million disaster relief bill on Wednesday, providing funding to western North Carolina after Hurricane Helene tore through the region.
Lawmakers emphasized that the bill is a first step. They will return to Raleigh on Oct. 24 to determine what further measures are needed.
Mayor Tim Radford of Murphy called the $273 million a “good starting point” for the recovery, but stressed the need for aid to repair infrastructure in the coming months.
“I think I drove over a couple of dozen power lines,” Radford said of a recent trip to the disaster declaration area. “A lot of roads just washed away.”
Recovery will become even more challenging in the upcoming weeks as the weather gets cooler.
Low temperatures in the 30s are expected in the region next week. They’ll continue to drop as winter approaches.
With people living in shelters after their homes were destroyed, housing and heating solutions will become even more crucial. Lawmakers asked for donations of kerosene heaters, blankets, and long coats to help keep residents warm.
In addition to about 400 damaged roads, officials have identified around 500 landslides in the impacted areas as of Wednesday, which have caused the loss of life, property, and roads.
“It may be the most expensive storm in history,” Republican Sen. Kevin Corbin said. His district covers eight counties in the western portion of the state.
After the landslides, Republican Sen. Timothy Moffitt was trapped on his property without a vehicle.
North Carolina Sen. Timothy Moffitt (R-Henderson) speaks to reporters about Hurricane Helene ahead of a vote on a relief package in Raleigh on Oct. 9, 2024. (Photo: Galen Bacharier/NC Newsline)
Eventually, he was able to leave the district, which covers Henderson, Polk, and Rutherford counties, to get to Raleigh. A colleague in the upper chamber provided him with a vehicle. It had generators inside, loaned from another senator.
“When I was leaving the mountains, it was a surreal experience,” Moffitt said. “When I got to Raleigh, it was equally as surreal in its normalcy. People were going about their lives as if nothing was going on anywhere else in the state.”
Sen. Ralph Hise, a Republican whose district spans nine counties in western North Carolina, said he’s seen plenty of floods and fires over the years.
This is the first time in any disaster where he’s seen all communications cease.
A facility producing IV and dialysis fluid is closed from the storm, as are two quartz mines. In prisons, almost 1,400 incarcerated people couldn’t flush toilets for five and a half days, Hise said.
Funding from the bill would help with restoring water treatment facilities and sewage plants — processes expected to take years.
“We lost power. We lost cell service, we lost water and sewer, people couldn’t call 911,” Hise said. “That’s something we never prepared for in the disaster, and that’s part of the challenges we had in getting responses.”