SWANNANOA, N.C. — Many North Carolinians here are eking out an existence walloped by the river that washed away their homes four months ago when Hurricane Helene swept through the area.
Still waiting for aid amid the snow and mud, they are critical and suspicious of government promises to help them rebuild their lives and homes.
“We’re supposed to be getting our house rebuilt, but just the time frame is the problem,” said one Swannanoa resident, a gas station attendant who declined to share his name out of fear of retribution.
He lives with his parents in a donated truck camper in the spot where their mobile home once sat — an endless swath of thick red mud and debris.
“My wife and kids are living in a hotel. I see them once or twice a week,” he said.
Dave “Cowboy” Graham is a roving disaster relief volunteer who runs points in the hardest-hit areas in Swannanoa. He said the government’s relief efforts are the slowest he has ever encountered.
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“I’ve been to a bunch of these. I’ve never seen it to where the National Guard isn’t here right now, helping out with you,” he said. “There’s no National Guard, there’s no police presence, there’s no nothing. It’s just like a theft. FEMA was out here for a few weeks, but then they packed up and left.”
Helene trampled six states after landfall in late September, none more severely than North Carolina. Of the more than 240 deaths attributed to the hurricane, at least 103 were recorded in North Carolina. Of the total estimated damage of $90 billion, more than $60 billion was tallied in the state.
Remote, mountainous communities in Buncombe and Henderson counties were initially cut off from rescue and recovery efforts. Now, they are waiting to receive the official aid promised to them.
The vast majority of reconstruction efforts in devastated enclaves such as Buncombe’s Swannanoa and Henderson’s Bat Cave appear to be run by volunteers.
“Disaster response is locally executed, state managed and federally supported,” a spokesperson for the Federal Emergency Management Agency told The Washington Times.
At this rate, rebuilding efforts will take years, said Mark Staton, head of disaster relief volunteer efforts in Bat Cave. He said the government’s sloth has left him numb.
Not all volunteers have been helpful.
“We’ve had a lot of people roll in here — had a bunch of trespassers. They would come in, they would either be so high on something or they would want to be a TikTok self-promoter, spreading misinformation. You know what I’m saying? And we lost a lot of donors because of stuff they’re saying online, trying to get followers,” Mr. Staton said.
Meanwhile, residents are living in donated recreational vehicles — some in good shape, others not.
“I lost it all,” said Swannanoa resident Danny Bailey. Before the storm, he was getting by on disability checks and living in a trailer with four dogs and one cat. The flood wiped it away with his cars, barn and everything else.
He still lives there but is now in a donated truck camper. The car he uses was donated, too.
His neighborhood has been reduced to a campground between the Swannanoa River and Old Highway 70. Smashed car parts and broken household items hang in tree branches and sit in roadside ditches.
Doobie, a Swannanoa man in his 60s, said he can’t remember the name of the church that gave him the camper he lives in with his wife. “They just dropped it off,” he said. “It’s getting us by.”
They live on donated goods that can’t fit inside. The donations sit in the mud, protected by a strapped-down blue tarp. Frozen rain collects nearby in icy puddles around boxes of dried food.
In the makeshift campground, the whir of generators mixes with the sounds of the river, punctuated by barking dogs or saws slicing two-by-fours. Gunshots sometimes join the chorus to scare off looters making their rounds.
Mr. Bailey and his neighbors have developed a neighborhood watch, keeping an eye on one another’s few crucial belongings.
A few weeks ago, Mr. Bailey was awakened in the middle of the night by a man with a flashlight rifling through his things. He told Mr. Bailey that he was “just looking around.”
“I said, ‘Looking at what?’ I said, ‘Are you searching for gold?’” he said, laughing.
“Anyway, I shot at him and then called the law. Sheriff’s [office] said they were understaffed,” Mr. Bailey said. “She told me, ‘Well, I can’t help it.’ And I said, ‘Well, I’ll just shoot him in the leg, then I call you, then you can arrest him while he’s still on my property.’ Look, I’d just be helping them out.”
Aid: Too little, too late?
Federal aid is expected to cover 90% of the state’s recovery costs. This month, federal officials announced that the state and the city of Asheville, the seat of Buncombe County, will receive more than $1.65 billion in federal Community Development Block Grant funds, part of a $100 billion relief bill approved by Congress last month.
Residents in crowded campers say the government’s spending has done little to help rebuild their lives.
“I could rebuild [my house], that ain’t no problem,” but navigating bureaucracy and new building codes have slowed his progress, Doobie said with frustration. “The county’s making me jump through so much red tape.”
He said his wife’s requests for financial aid were denied after they received the initial $750. Others said the same thing.
FEMA told The Times it could not discuss individual cases, but “discrepancies in the information provided” or missing paperwork can delay the process. Residents say organizing paperwork can be tough in their situation.
Mr. Bailey said that after FEMA gave him “the runaround,” a friend pleaded his case to the county. He then received aid totaling $42,000 — a sum he calls “nothing” in the face of rebuilding costs. “If you buy a trailer, just a single 14-by-70, it’s $50,000. Add setup costs, and you’re at $100,000. Forty-two thousand ain’t going to do nothing.”
He plans to stay in the camper until he decides whether to move to West Virginia, where land is cheaper.
Before Helene, insurance wasn’t a worthwhile expense for many of the lower-income folks in the Asheville region. It was seen as needless, and flood insurance wasn’t available for those near the river.
Now, many of them are left without financial options. “My trailer was too old to have insurance on it,” Mr. Bailey said with a shrug.
Under North Carolina real estate law, property owners have mineral rights to the center of the river if it’s a noncommercial waterway.
“And so now that the river is a lot bigger, you can turn it into a commercial waterway if you want. It’s about 4 to 5 feet deeper in a lot of areas, right?” a recovery volunteer said.
Mr. Graham, another disaster relief volunteer, said the government is offering land buyouts to devastated residents. “And now they’ve condemned it and said it’s a flood plain. They’re … grabbing the land or offering them some pitiful $2,000 or $3,000 for the lot,” he said.
A Buncombe County spokesperson said in an email that if a property owner “elects to sell, that land cannot be used for housing in the future.” The buyout offers are part of the FEMA-funded Hazard Mitigation Grant Program, managed by the North Carolina Department of Public Safety’s division of emergency management.
“Residents can receive funding to make their homes more resilient through home projects that reduce the long-term risk and impacts of natural hazards,” the county spokesperson said.
Opting to sell is tempting for families with nothing left. Mr. Graham said lots of families have sold and shipped out.
“It’s hard for a parent to sit in a tent with a wet dog and rebuild if you know your kids never want to come back,” he said. Helene’s wake is the worst “by fivefold over.”
For those who choose to stay, Mr. Staton offered words of consolation and resignation.
“We’re just trying to get through this and stay focused on whatever task is at hand, I reckon,” he said, squinting at the river where several collapsed houses stand in the water.
He finished his Marlboro and tossed it on the ground, his voice dropping to a whisper: “It’s like being in a forgotten land.”
• Emma Ayers can be reached at eayers@washingtontimes.com.
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