Episode 87: The Hurricane Helene Recovery Begins
Aerial views of Hurricane Helene's devastation in western North Carolina are hard enough to process, but imagine being in charge of the actual recovery. On this episode, we're going to hear directly from the leaders of these hard-hit communities about what they've witnessed and what they need right now to position for a comeback -- one that everyone expects will take a long time. But they're on it. Just recently, members of the NC League of Municipalities and the NC Association of County Commissioners grouped with state and federal partners for a daylong discussion, physically in the same room, to get everybody on one page in a real discussion of what's ahead. Municipal Equation was on site to gather the points. Municipal Equation is a production of the N.C. League of Municipalities, https://www.nclm.org. Contact host/producer Ben Brown at bbrown@nclm.org.
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Transcript
From the North Carolina League of Municipalities, this is Municipal Equation, a podcast about cities and towns. Thanks for joining us once again on Municipal Equation from the North Carolina League of Municipalities. I'm Ben Brown, and it's time on this podcast to talk about the recovery efforts that all levels of government are involved in right now since hurricane Helene absolutely thrashed the mountain communities of Western North Carolina roughly two months ago as I speak. We need to make sure that Western North Carolina is not forgotten.
I think the public has a really short memory, and we forget about things as they happen, it seems like. And more than anything, I really wanna stress that this isn't going to be a one, a two, or or a three year recovery. You know, in some areas in our region, it's gonna take them a decade to recover.
That's Preston Blakely. He's the mayor of Fletcher, North Carolina, one of the towns that was so hard hit by late September's hurricane Helene. This historic storm, super powerful category four when it made landfall in late September. So as I speak right now, it's mid to late November, getting to be a couple months out since the storm laid out so much devastation. We've seen the images, the heartbreaking drone shots. We're gonna hear a lot of voices on this episode, people who directly represent these hard hit communities. They're coming right up. So we can hear from them directly on what they've seen, but also what they need as far as a successful recovery goes. None of these towns, these individual towns can do it by themselves. And this isn't just about getting one or two towns back online. This is an entire economy. And there are two things to say right now, being mid to late November twenty twenty four, at least two things. I know there are a million things we could say, but we're gonna circle a couple things right now when it comes to the recovery, and we're gonna start with an important positive. And that's the message that Western North Carolina is open. No. That doesn't mean it's back to normal like nothing ever happened, and we'll get to that in a minute. But it's important to emphasize that the beautiful mountains of Western North Carolina are open. Things are starting to come back online, thanks to amazing teamwork. In fact, North Carolina League of Municipalities president, Mark Anthony Middleton, from Durham, Durham, of course, being more in the central part of the state, but he's been working with leadership out in the western part of the state. So he can communicate just recently that he joins Western NC local leaders and, quote, encouraging everyone to safely explore the beauty of Western North Carolina this fall. Many local businesses, restaurants, and hospitality options are ready and eager to welcome tourists to the region, offering stunning fall foliage, breathtaking mountainous landscapes, and rich cultural heritage. Tourism is a critical part of the recovery process for Western municipalities. This influx of visitors help support local economies, secure jobs, and rebuild vital community infrastructure. By visiting and spending time in the region, you are directly contributing to the recovery efforts and helping these communities thrive in the aftermath of their devastation. And, of course, as as I'm sure you might anyway, just check ahead that the the roads are okay. The local conditions are are good to go for what you're trying to do, where you're trying to go out west, but it's fall. It's such a great time to check out the North Carolina Mountains where I have a lot of family and personal connections myself. But that brings me to the second thing we need to circle, and that's what these Western North Carolina communities still need. Because although it's amazing to see these businesses and amenities open back up, it's hard to overstate how bad this storm was for these areas. It was bad. Meaning, not only is the recovery gonna take a long time, but there are so many ripple effects to this storm. You know, when a business can reopen, not only is that a plainly good thing, but it also means that they can employ people again and get people back to work so those people can pay their bills at home and get themselves back in in position with the world. So many ripple effects. Just recently, I was talking to a mayor from one of these hard hit towns about how they were about to undergo the periodic property revaluation, which of course is one of the most important projects for a local government, you know, figuring out the tax base. But how do you revalue property where so much of it just got wiped out or was severely impacted? So they've been forced to put that off, that revow, for years. I had that conversation and many others like it at a recent event that packed a large conference facility in Morganton, North Carolina, where the League of Municipalities joined its longtime friends at the NC Association of County Commissioners in putting on this successful event that saw municipal, county, state, and federal officials all in one room so they could talk about how they can work together on the recovery.
These efforts and these last few weeks are just the beginning. We know that most of the work of recovery is ahead and that it will not be easy. This is not a sprint. This is a marathon that will require all of us to work together to do the right thing.
Back to back right there was NCLM president Mark Anthony Middleton and North Carolina Association of County Commissioners president, Tara t Davis, a commissioner from Warren County. Governor Roy Cooper was there. State house speaker Tim Moore was there. Incoming state house speaker Destin Hall, US senator Tom Tillis, several legislators, and scores of county and municipal officials, both staff and elected, were all there for this day long event focused on getting North Carolina back to where it needs to be following this horrible storm. So what I did at that event, at that conference center, alongside my counterpart at the County Commissioners Association, thank you, Chris, is we interviewed individual local officials to get their thoughts on the messaging and the reality of the situation. And I think it's just gonna be right to to play you some of those highlights, what they said, what the word was at this event to really capture the tone of where we're at right now in November 2024 and the Western North Carolina recovery effort. And we'll start by picking back up with Preston Blakely, the mayor of Fletcher, North Carolina.
Yeah. I mean, there there there's a number of things that, you know, I'll ask for state or federal, representatives. First and foremost, just broadly speaking, just money. I mean, a lot of organizations, a lot of, local government entities, a lot of private companies need money. You know, in the town of Fletcher, we have an incredible manufacturing presence, and that's a large base of our economy. And, you know, when those manufacturers got damaged, they need to get those folk back to work. You know, they need the money to repair their their facilities. We need that in the town of Fletcher. We need those people at work. We rely on that tax base. Hendersonville city manager, John Conant. I think what we need is is is direct financial support,
for for our local governments and our small businesses. The this time, the fall of the year is when most of us generate our revenue and we have lost that and this devastating storm has has not only affected the governmental systems infrastructure but also the local economy. So direct appropriation for our local governments and our small businesses would be what I would ask for. Asheville mayor Esther Manheimer. We could see a loss in population.
We could see a loss in economic activity. We could see, an atrophying of our of our vibrant and beautiful Western North Carolina. And before this hurricane, we were hitting on all cylinders. I mean, we're a place where millions of people visit every year, and support, a very unique local economy that has restaurants, and shops, and artists, and, all all, you know, people that specialize in the outdoor business, industry. Just it supports an entire economy for Western North Carolina, and to lose that has a cascading effect, where, you know, even businesses that have nothing to do with that sort of industry, it becomes a less desirable place to locate and to recruit employees. And you can see that it can have, a domino effect that could, harm us for years to come.
Steve Little, mayor of Marion.
That street called Catawba Avenue was transformed from a paved four lane street to a river, a raging, torrential, fast moving river that was carrying logs and pieces of trees and debris and washing mobile homes off of their attachments and and bringing them out and bringing them down the river, cars being washed away, things that we cannot even comprehend. We we see things in movies or even cartoons and you you see that happening and it's not real. But this was real and it was happening and people lost their homes. How are they gonna recover? It it won't be exactly the same. It it it won't. I don't know what it will be, but my heart goes out to those who have have lost essentially everything that they have. Gary Caldwell,
mayor of Waynesville. In our area, we we have people that that don't have any other place to go. And so they're actually living in tents, you know, and that's very that's sad, you know, that's sad, you know, that and especially you you think, you know, the senior citizens that don't have that kind of funding, you know, to put back in their home. And so it's it's devastating.
Waynesville town manager, Rob Heights.
We have already spent over a million dollars of our savings in the the purchasing equipment and products to restore what we have. We've lost millions of dollars of business and real estate. We will lose population. We will lose business, and we won't recover our infrastructure in such a way that it leaves the government itself as financially sound as it was before. So over a decade, we'll have to very slowly rebuild our resources to bring us back to where we are now, not to progress as a local as a local government.
Murphy mayor, Tim Radford. My biggest priority, especially in Murphy, North Carolina, as far west, we didn't get the physical damage, but we had infrastructure failure. Our communication systems went down. Our 911 systems, we were without without 911 locally for days. No cell towers working. No landlines were working. So I think of those people that that so needed desperately to call for help but couldn't because the cell phone no communications work for those folks. Heartbreaking. Kosti Coutee,
mayor of Statesville.
Everything from individual residences to big businesses who've lost power and can't reemploy their folks while they can't get their power restored. So just the needs are just immeasurable and in innumerable. And so, what we're hearing today is a lot of, ways that people
can help and have helped. Maricoute right then referring directly to the event that was taking place there in Morganton,
bringing officials from all levels of government together to talk about it. Here's North Carolina house speaker Tim Moore. I guess I've toured every county that was impacted, some just a few days after and then continuing on, and I see a lot of the same faces. But it is, it's just amazing, though, to see that in in the darkest hours, you sometimes see the brightest lights. You see people who have lost their own, had suffered damage themselves and who are out there giving back to others in need. And that is, if that that's the American spirit. Absolutely.
These increments of highlights and positives are important to add up and recognize as the efforts continue, as they will well into the future. We know that this is not, something we're gonna snap our fingers and it's gonna be fixed overnight. This is gonna be a multiyear
rebuilding. It is going to be a multibillion dollar rebuilding, and I would expect to see that commitment, for the state to do what it can. And since I'm gonna be starting another job in January Speaker Moore referring to his recent election to Congress. I will certainly be doing, my doggy best to make sure that at the federal level, that the resources are provided to to Western North Carolina. And I think I can speak for the entire, congressional delegation. I've spoken with every one of them, the new the the ones that will continue to serve and the folks who are coming in as well. And everybody is in complete agreement that, this is priority one, is to make sure that Western North Carolina is rebuilt.
US senator Tom Tillis. I think this is the first step in an iterative process that we have to go through. We've identified a lot of very important needs here, and I've gotta go back to Washington and continue to pound, what I've been saying since the first of nine visits out to Western North Carolina, since the storm. This is different. There is no analog in terms of a storm impact like this in this nation's history. This is the most deadly and most damaging storm that's ever hit North Carolina. And folks, we were in the path of Hugo, Matthew, Harvey, Florence, the list goes on. So we've got to think differently, and we've got to think longer term. North Carolina governor Roy Cooper.
Thank you for this great idea of pulling together local officials to talk about the challenges that we face that we know are pretty significant. We deeply mourn the loss of a 102 souls, including first responders. We are are saddened at the loss of property, infrastructure, homes, along with devastating economic loss. We did our analysis over a number of of weeks getting a lot of input from you, which we appreciate, but we figured that this storm, the total damage is $53,000,000,000 And to put that in perspective, hurricane Florence, which devastated Eastern North Carolina, was a storm that was ranked at $17,000,000,000. So we know that we have more than three times the damage in this storm.
The elected officials there from the state and federal levels came with staffers and listened to the specific needs described by local officials.
Lots of representatives from the Federal Emergency Management Agency were there as well, providing updates from their end and listening to reports on the ground. Good afternoon. I'm Maureen Coppola from the city of Brevard, governor, senator. Thank you so much. It is so good to be able to tell you directly what some of our needs are. That means a lot to all of us. First off, I wanna talk about the need for really understanding the economic impact. A governor mentioned, you know, the damage estimate. Well, we need an estimate as to how this really is going to impact both economically for our governmental entities and for all of our private entities. Because I think what we're seeing right now is just the tip of that iceberg. There is a lot more out there. And so what we really need is we need a way to fast track economic and when I say economic, I'm talking money, I'm talking cash, I'm talking special grants. I'm talking all those creative financing that I know everybody in Raleigh and DC knows how to do. That is the type of support that we really need to start looking at. We know as a government, you know, as a city, I know how hard we are gonna be hit with our budget, because sales tax is so important. It's tourism, and we just lost. One business told me that on October is their busiest month for sales, and this year, they had 28. So that's basically 75% of the income that they usually get is down. Well, I try to understand what that would do to a small city's budget like like in Brevard. We rely on that. So we know there's going to be an economic impact to that business, and we know it's going to ripple over to us. It's gonna be because we've waived fees. We've, had to basically, you know, make those little decisions, but those add up because that's all part of our budget. We also know their property taxes. As it's been mentioned before, some of that property just doesn't exist anymore. And so we really need help economically for the governments that are out there. But then our small businesses, that's the lifeblood of our of Western North Carolina, our county. It's all small local businesses, and they have lost revenue. Some of them have actually suffered damage, and they've gone to be out of business, really for months while they repair. But even our downtown here at, like, in Brevard, it wasn't physically damaged, but it has been absolutely economically damaged because nobody's coming. So that message that Western North Carolina is open, that has got to get out there.
Mayor Maureen Kopolov from the city of Brevard, North Carolina. We'd like to thank our friends at the NC Association of County Commissioners for all of the great work organizing and bringing everyone together with the League of Municipalities and all of our partners in the nuanced group effort toward a Western North Carolina rebound. And we're obviously going to continue this messaging and updating it as it goes. NCLM members will continue to find that in the regular newsletters and other communications we put out. The storm related information is prominently featured. Of course, municipal officials can always go to our website, nclm.org, and quickly find contact information about filing claims and so on. If you're in county government, you're listening to this, you can go to the County Commissioners Association's website at ncacc.org. They also have a quick link to Helene related information. This is all very much in progress, in flux. Things are moving. Information is sensitive. But we're going to get through this together, and we'll wrap up on that note. Here's mayor Joe Gibbons of the city of Lenoir. We will recover. We will continue to work and and move back. It's gonna take time,
but we will do all we can. We work together, and that's what's been the greatest thing. I think out of this whole deal is watching people come together to work and make things happen as fast, as quick as they could to help people get out of this situation.
Thank you so much for listening and playing a part in the betterment of North Carolina and the hundreds and hundreds of local communities within that make up the Tar Heel State, from the Atlantic Coast and over the plains to the mountains out West. This is Municipal Equation, a podcast about cities and towns from the North Carolina League of Municipalities, working as one, advancing all, online at n c l m dot org. This organization has been working with cities and towns across the state since nineteen o eight. My name is Ben Brown. I work with the communications team at NCLM. And if you have any thoughts or questions or ideas related to this podcast or anything else in our world, you can send me an email at bbrown@nclm.org. Thanks again for listening. I'll be in touch. This is Municipal Equation. Across North Carolina, Civic Credit Union applauds dedicated local government employees who make a difference in our communities through their dedicated service. In honor of those efforts, Civic Credit Union kicked off a campaign titled I love NC local government, in which local government employees and Civic Credit Union members are featured to showcase the impact they make every single day in their roles. Each participant is provided a branded t shirt designed specifically for the campaign. Also, the participants share why they are passionate about their local government career and the community they serve by providing a quote or video testimonial while wearing the branded t shirt. Members of the NC League of Municipalities have received information in their weekly league letter on how to directly participate. You can learn more about Civic Credit Union at civicfcu.org.