{"id":1046,"date":"2026-09-10T14:23:59","date_gmt":"2026-09-10T14:23:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/atlaslivingmedia.com\/?p=1046"},"modified":"2026-09-10T14:23:59","modified_gmt":"2026-09-10T14:23:59","slug":"two-years-after-helene-north-carolinas-unsettled-recovery","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/atlaslivingmedia.com\/?p=1046","title":{"rendered":"Two Years After Helene, North Carolina\u2019s Unsettled Recovery"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

In late January 2025, President Donald Trump took his first trip outside of Washington, DC, after returning to office for his second term. His destination: North Carolina, which four months earlier had been devastated by Hurricane Helene\u2014the deadliest storm to hit the United States since Hurricane Maria in 2017. Helene battered communities in six states, killing hundreds and displacing tens of thousands, but western North Carolina was hit the hardest, and in a series of stops in the region, Trump pledged to rebuild after the storm. \u201cI promised that I\u2019d come back to western North Carolina to help the people of the state, and today, here I am to deliver on that promise,\u201d Trump declared in Swannanoa, 10 miles east of Asheville. \u201cUnder the Trump administration, the days of betrayal and neglect are over.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read more How the AfD Benefits Politically From the Ukraine War\u2019s Backlash<\/a><\/p>\n

But Trump delivered two other messages during his visit that seized headlines and may have surprised those assembled for the photo ops. Trump had proposed \u201cgetting rid of\u201d the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) altogether, saying during his stop in the town of Fletcher, \u201cIt\u2019s very bureaucratic, very slow.\u201d He doubled down in Swannanoa: \u201cIf it was up to me right now, I\u2019d end it right now.\u201d<\/p>\n

He also announced that Michael Whatley, a GOP operative and Trump ally, would lead the administration\u2019s recovery effort. \u201cI\u2019d like to put Michael in charge of making sure everything goes well,\u201d Trump said in Fletcher. In Swannanoa, he added, \u201cMichael Whatley is going to be very much in charge.\u201d<\/p>\n

But two years after Helene, North Carolina\u2019s recovery remains painfully slow and uneven, hampered by a federal response that has been starved of money and hobbled by turmoil inside Trump\u2019s FEMA. Western North Carolina has become a testing ground for what happens when increasingly destructive disasters collide with a weakened response system\u2014and whether the US government can still deliver when catastrophe strikes.<\/p>\n

The troubled recovery after Helene could also become a political reckoning. Whatley, Trump\u2019s handpicked \u201crecovery czar,\u201d is now in a close race for a critical US Senate seat in North Carolina, which has put his record on Helene\u2014and the administration\u2019s handling of disasters more broadly\u2014under new scrutiny.<\/p>\n

Helene slammed into Florida\u2019s Big Bend as a Category 4 hurricane on September 26, 2024, and careened through Georgia and into southern Appalachia, unleashing a record rainfall and historic levels of flooding. North Carolina\u2019s western counties took the brunt of the disaster, with 100 deaths occurring there out of Helene\u2019s more than 250.<\/p>\n

The storm damaged or destroyed more than 70,000 homes in the state. Water systems in two dozen cities and towns broke down because of flooding and fast-moving debris; Asheville, the biggest city in western North Carolina, didn\u2019t have potable water for almost two months after Helene.<\/p>\n

The region\u2019s steep mountain terrain made Helene especially destructive, and recovery especially difficult. More than 2,000 landslides damaged homes and roads; in Fairview, southeast of Asheville, 10 landslides converged, killing 13 people. Entire communities were cut off as 5,000 miles of state-maintained roads and some 8,000 private roads, culverts, and bridges were damaged. The disaster zone also included 138,000 mobile homes, leaving poor and working-class residents especially vulnerable to wind, flooding, and falling rocks.<\/p>\n

North Carolina has made remarkable progress in Helene\u2019s aftermath. As of July 2026, the state\u2019s public-recovery dashboard reported that all but one of the 1,588 storm-ravaged public roads have been reopened, and 625 of the 880 damaged public bridges have been fixed. Officials say that 99 percent of public drinking-water and 93 percent of wastewater systems are back online.<\/p>\n

Other issues are taking more time. Of more than 3,000 sites targeted by the state\u2019s Private Road and Bridge Program, which was set up to reimburse owners of property damaged by Helene, only 145 had been completed by late July. In a letter to Congress that month, North Carolina\u2019s Democratic Governor Josh Stein said that 1,000 homes have been repaired or rebuilt and another 2,800 are in progress, but some 56,000 homes remain damaged or destroyed.<\/p>\n

Part of the slow recovery is simply the challenge of rebuilding after a major disaster. \u201cYou\u2019re not going to get back to where you were in three or four years,\u201d Stein said in July. \u201cYou have to be committed to this work for the long haul.\u201d<\/p>\n

But western North Carolina\u2019s recovery has also been hindered by a federal response that many local leaders describe as inadequate, delayed, and chaotic.<\/p>\n

The main problem is that Trump and Congress haven\u2019t provided enough resources. Stein said the total amount of federal funding that had been allocated to the state as of July was about $9.3 billion, less than 16 percent of the estimated damages of $60 billion.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s glaringly out of step with the federal government\u2019s response to past disasters. After Hurricane Sandy stormed up the Atlantic coast in 2012, federal aid covered 78 percent of the estimated $88 billion in damages. In the aftermath of Hurricanes Katrina and Maria, federal dollars accounted for 73 percent of costs.<\/p>\n

To plug the shortfall, North Carolina has put up more than $4 billion of its own money. That includes $175 million to repair private roads and bridges, utility assistance for more than 10,000 households, and more than $100 million for small businesses affected by the storm. Trump hasn\u2019t asked for, and Congress hasn\u2019t appropriated, any new funding since Helene hit.<\/p>\n

\u201cToo many projects in western North Carolina have stalled due to insufficient funding,\u201d North Carolina Republican Senator Ted Budd testified before the Senate Appropriations Committee in July, urging Congress to add Helene aid to Trump\u2019s $87.6 billion supplemental request, largely for the Pentagon and the war in Iran. \u201cWhen I visit western North Carolina, I see the impacts the delays in recovery have caused. Debris still clogs the waterways. Facilities that provide drinking water and manage wastewater have yet to be rebuilt. Most concerning, some homeowners are paying mortgages on properties that are still unlivable or yet to be rebuilt.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jon Council, an organizer for the grassroots group Down Home North Carolina, said the state\u2019s progress was remarkable given the paltry level of federal support. \u201cI\u2019m really happy with what the state has done, particularly the Governor\u2019s Recovery Office for Western North Carolina,\u201d Council told The Nation<\/em> and Facing South<\/em>.<\/p>\n

The meager federal spending on Helene may signal something bigger than a momentary bout of stinginess. In June 2025, Trump renewed his call to end FEMA and said he plans to push the responsibility for responding to natural disasters \u201cback to the states\u201d\u2014just as he\u2019s done in North Carolina. \u201cThe governors can handle\u201d these disasters, Trump told reporters. \u201cIf they can\u2019t handle it, they shouldn\u2019t be governor.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Trump administration has backed away, for now, from abolishing FEMA outright. But much of the agency has been eviscerated during Trump\u2019s second term.<\/p>\n

Since January 2025, FEMA has lost more than 4,300 personnel because of terminations and resignations; that includes over half of its senior executive staff. The agency has churned through five administrators, and only one, the previous leader Bob Fenton, had notable disaster-management experience. As of June of this year, seven of FEMA\u2019s 10 regional-administrator positions were vacant.<\/p>\n

Under Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Kristi Noem, who was fired in March, FEMA was dogged by reports of power struggles, political favoritism, and sheer incompetence. Noem hired Trump\u2019s first campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, as a special government employee to be her \u201cde facto chief of staff.\u201d Lewandowski in turn hired an outside contractor, Kara Voorhies, an accountant who agency sources say became FEMA\u2019s \u201cshadow administrator,\u201d with unusual control over access to the agency and how and where funds were spent.<\/p>\n

Lewandowski\u2019s and Voorhies\u2019s influence over spending was especially notable because Noem had instituted a controversial rule that all DHS expenditures over $100,000 had to be approved by her office. A Senate investigation found that the burdensome requirement held up more than 1,000 FEMA grants and contracts for disaster-relief projects in one three-month period in 2025. The head of FEMA\u2019s Urban Search and Rescue division, Ken Pagurek, resigned in July 2025 after Noem\u2019s office delayed funding for call-center response and other relief in the wake of historic flooding in Texas that killed more than 130 people.<\/p>\n

As the expert staff left, unqualified leadership moved in. In December 2025, the White House installed the far-right conspiracy theorist Gregg Phillips to head the Office of Response and Recovery, FEMA\u2019s biggest division. Phillips had no disaster-management experience, but he championed Trump\u2019s false allegations of widespread election fraud. Phillips came under scrutiny when it surfaced that he claimed to have once been involuntarily teleported into a Waffle House in Rome, Georgia; he left FEMA in June.<\/p>\n

Read more How 9\/11 Became a Joke<\/a><\/p>\n

FEMA\u2019s willingness and ability to quickly respond to disasters has deteriorated. Andrew Rumbach, a disaster-policy expert at the Urban Institute, found that in Trump\u2019s second term, the agency has denied 30 percent of states\u2019 requests for disaster declarations, almost twice the rate of the four previous administrations. Declarations have also taken an average of almost 70 days to decide; before, it took just 22.<\/p>\n

Trump removed Noem from the DHS after congressional hearings highlighted what one administration official called \u201cmany unfortunate leadership failures,\u201d including her handling of Helene. Lewandowski and Voorhies left with her, and the DHS is conducting an investigation into their roles. Noem\u2019s replacement, the former Oklahoma senator Markwayne Mullin, has reportedly ended her $100,000 spending-review policy. And in August, the Senate confirmed Cameron Hamilton, a former Navy SEAL, to head FEMA; he had briefly served as the agency\u2019s interim leader in 2025 before being fired after publicly opposing Trump\u2019s call to abolish it.<\/p>\n

The administration\u2019s failures in western North Carolina are especially glaring given Trump\u2019s elevation of Michael Whatley as \u201crecovery czar\u201d after Helene.<\/p>\n

Born in Michigan, Whatley and his family moved to the mountain resort town of Blowing Rock, North Carolina, when he was in high school; there, he got his start in politics volunteering for the state\u2019s archconservative US senator, Jesse Helms. After law school and stints in Washington, Whatley began a 12-year career as a lobbyist for oil and natural-gas companies, including a multiyear campaign to expand offshore oil drilling in the Atlantic.<\/p>\n

In 2019, Whatley was elected chair of the North Carolina Republican Party. He earned Trump\u2019s appreciation when, after the 2020 presidential election, Whatley organized \u201cStop the Steal\u201d rallies across North Carolina and amplified Trump\u2019s false claims that \u201cmassive fraud\u201d had changed the race\u2019s outcome. In recognition of his fealty, and with an eye toward North Carolina\u2019s battleground status in the upcoming presidential contest, Trump endorsed Whatley\u2019s successful bid to serve as chair of the Republican National Committee in February 2024, with North Carolina native (and Trump daughter-in-law) Lara Trump serving as co-chair.<\/p>\n

Whatley and the RNC\u2019s success in helping Trump win the 2024 election made him, in the president\u2019s eyes, an ideal pick to lead the post-Helene recovery. \u201cIf Michael Whatley does half as good a job for North Carolina as he did for my campaign, we\u2019ll be very happy,\u201d Trump said during his January 2025 visit.<\/p>\n

But according to sources who spoke with The Nation<\/em> and Facing South<\/em>, there\u2019s little evidence that Whatley has done much for their communities in his role as recovery czar.<\/p>\n

This past July, The Nation<\/em> and Facing South<\/em> interviewed four mayors of North Carolina cities and towns hit hard by Helene, and all of them said that Whatley hadn\u2019t contacted them to discuss relief and recovery after the storm.<\/p>\n

In Boone, the location of Appalachian State University and home to about 20,000 residents, Helene\u2019s floodwaters collapsed roads and caused more than 140 housing units to be condemned. Boone\u2019s mayor, Dalton George (who was mayor pro tem when Helene struck), said he\u2019s worked with many Democratic and Republican officials since the storm but has never heard from Whatley. \u201cI would welcome a call from Michael Whatley right now if he has some solutions [for] the ongoing recovery,\u201d George said. \u201cBut I\u2019ve not had that opportunity.\u201d<\/p>\n

Asheville Mayor Esther Manheimer says Whatley has never called her either, even though she contacted him after getting his phone number during a chance encounter at an event. She\u2019s not sure what he\u2019s been doing in his role as recovery czar: \u201cAs far as I can tell, it\u2019s a title to hold so he can run for office with a job title.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the small river town of Marshall, where floodwaters crested at 27 feet and swept away 10 buildings, Mayor Aaron Haynie speaks with pride about the community\u2019s bipartisan rebuilding effort. But he says Whatley has never reached out to help.<\/p>\n

Mayor Zeb Smathers of Canton, a town 20 minutes west of Asheville that was still rebuilding after 2021\u2019s Tropical Storm Fred when Helene hit, is more scathing. \u201cWhatley, do your job,\u201d Smathers said. \u201cHe was going to be the recovery czar but hasn\u2019t been here, hasn\u2019t done anything.\u201d<\/p>\n

There is also scant evidence that Whatley worked on Helene recovery with county governments, where much of the disaster response is coordinated. The Nation<\/em> and Facing South<\/em> sent public-records requests to 17 western counties heavily impacted by the storm, asking for e-mails and other documentation of Whatley\u2019s involvement from January 2025 to June 2026. Of the 14 that responded, 11 had no record of Whatley reaching out about Helene. In the three counties that reported contact with Whatley, there appear to have been one-off meetings, with no record of any follow-up steps.<\/p>\n

His absence earned him the \u201cWhere\u2019s Waldo?\u201d award from the Smoky Mountain News<\/em> in December 2025. \u201cWhatley\u2019s critics say he\u2019s rarely, if ever, been spotted in the disaster zone he\u2019s supposed to lead,\u201d the paper wrote, adding that records show he had only one conversation in 2025 with Matt Calabria, the head of the Governor\u2019s Recovery Office for Western North Carolina.<\/p>\n

Even as money failed to move and FEMA sank into disarray, Whatley was praising Noem\u2019s leadership at the DHS and her role in the response. In September 2025, he said on a radio program that Noem was \u201cdoing a great job\u201d helping North Carolina after the storm. Two months later, he posted on X: \u201cThank you, President Trump and @Sec_Noem, for your steadfast leadership and commitment to helping North Carolina communities rebuild after Hurricane Helene.\u201d<\/p>\n

At the same time, Whatley has distanced himself from the \u201crecovery czar\u201d label, focusing instead on his role with the FEMA Review Council\u2014a body that Trump created to shut down FEMA but which, after months of delays, proposed smaller reforms this spring. According to audio obtained by The Assembly<\/em>, a North Carolina online magazine, when Whatley was asked at an event in May whether he\u2019d get rid of FEMA, he replied, \u201cI\u2019ve suggested the president do that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Asked to comment for this story, Whatley\u2019s campaign spokesman D.J. Griffin e-mailed a statement (which he prefaced by saying, \u201cThanks for checking in dude. A lotta Libtards wouldn\u2019t be so courteous\u2026\u201d): \u201cMichael Whatley served on the FEMA Review Council Board. If you look very very very very closely, you\u2019ll notice there\u2019s no czar in that description. Not a czar of any sort.\u201d Griffin also said Whatley had worked with Republicans to \u201cdeliver more than $10.75 billion in federal hurricane relief for North Carolina\u2014more than any natural disaster in state history. But the job is not yet done and Michael will continue speaking with local leaders about what they need help with.\u201d (A state official involved in the recovery told The Nation<\/em> and Facing South<\/em> that Whatley\u2019s funding estimate likely includes $1.5 billion set aside for hazard-mitigation projects; however, the precise amount and timing of the money is still uncertain.)<\/p>\n

Former North Carolina governor Roy Cooper, Whatley\u2019s Democratic opponent in this year\u2019s Senate election, has led in recent polls\u2014and has made Helene recovery a central line of attack.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe president named Michael Whatley as the recovery czar for western North Carolina, and so far, he has failed miserably,\u201d Cooper said in January. \u201cWe have the most damaging storm in the history of North Carolina; billions of dollars are going to be needed to recover. Yet the federal government has written checks for only a small percentage of it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Two years after Trump promised that the \u201cdays of betrayal and neglect are over,\u201d western North Carolina\u2019s troubled recovery looks like a warning for communities around the country facing the next climate-fueled disaster.<\/p>\n

\u201cFolks need to pay attention to how [the Helene] recovery has gone,\u201d Jon Council says. \u201cBecause this may be the playbook that we\u2019re looking at for a lot of future disasters.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read more How the AfD Benefits Politically From the Ukraine War\u2019s Backlash<\/a><\/p>\n<\/article>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Nation Magazine<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1045,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1046","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-feature"],"yoast_head":"\nTwo Years After Helene, North Carolina\u2019s Unsettled Recovery - Atlas Living Media<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/atlaslivingmedia.com\/?p=1046\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Two Years After Helene, North Carolina\u2019s Unsettled Recovery - Atlas Living Media\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The Nation Magazine\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/atlaslivingmedia.com\/?p=1046\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Atlas Living Media\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2026-09-10T14:23:59+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"14 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/atlaslivingmedia.com\\\/?p=1046#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/atlaslivingmedia.com\\\/?p=1046\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"admin\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/atlaslivingmedia.com\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/f6233854b1f92a6d21147fe5d5e58abc\"},\"headline\":\"Two Years After Helene, North Carolina\u2019s Unsettled Recovery\",\"datePublished\":\"2026-09-10T14:23:59+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/atlaslivingmedia.com\\\/?p=1046\"},\"wordCount\":2814,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/atlaslivingmedia.com\\\/?p=1046#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/atlaslivingmedia.com\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2026\\\/09\\\/e0e3917a09086309ab0a4a2c4db1ccd2.jpg\",\"articleSection\":[\"Feature\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/atlaslivingmedia.com\\\/?p=1046#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/atlaslivingmedia.com\\\/?p=1046\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/atlaslivingmedia.com\\\/?p=1046\",\"name\":\"Two Years After Helene, North Carolina\u2019s Unsettled Recovery - 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