Communities struggle to recover from Hurricane Helen and Milton

Floodwaters and a collapsed building block a road in Swannanoa, North Carolina, on September 27, 2024. Photo: Mike Bellem, The New York Times/Redux.

For the first two days after Hurricane Helen, Ken Floyd, the 41-year-old general manager of the Monte Vista Hotel in Black Mountain, North Carolina, was stressed. The father-of-three was trapped at home with his family as a landslide raged through the area, destroying trees and destroying roads, leaving him unable to check on others. “It was just this constant worry of when are we going to get out of here?” says Floyd. “I was worried and worried about my staff at the hotel. I wanted to make sure everyone was okay.”

The Monte Vista Hotel has become a local hangout after two managers swung into action to feed hungry guests. “After about two days I was finally able to get out… and they turned feeding those 10 guests into feeding the whole town,” Floyd says. “I saw hospitality at its core. I’ve been doing this for 20 years, and that day was the first time I saw it in my heart.”

But despite local recovery efforts, some residents are frustrated by delays in federal aid and worried about whether the government can meet the moment halfway. “It was 1000 year storm” Floyd says, echoing meteorologists who have said the chance of a hurricane like Helen with that amount of rainfall is less than 0.1% in any given year. Floyd, who is calling for more financial support from state and federal officials including FEMA, says hurricane recovery efforts are hampered given new hurricane-resistant building rules they must follow and delays in federal aid. “People are trying to come home and rebuild and renovate their homes, and now they’re being told they’re going to have to raise it or they won’t be able to build the whole thing,” he says.

More than 100 people in the state — and at least 228 in the U.S. — died due to the storm, nearly half of them from Buncombe County, the western North Carolina county home to the small mountain town of Black Mountain. The region was devastated by Hurricane Helen on September 28, with some nearby communities such as Busick, North Carolina reporting more than 30 inches of raincausing historic rates of flooding. The North Carolina Budget Office estimates the recovery will cost about $53 billion. more than 600 bridges destroyed, 7,000 road damage sites and much more.

Helen’s effects extend beyond North Carolina. Hurricane Helen made landfall near Perry, Florida, as a Category 4 hurricane on September 26, bringing a 15-foot storm surge to the Big Bend. according to preliminary databefore affecting Georgia, South Carolina, Virginia, Tennessee and Alabama.

Helen was followed by Category 3 Hurricane Milton on October 9, causing even more damage to Florida and causing 150 tornado warnings in the state.

“We always find ways to recover, but this last one or the last two were kind of a one-two punch between Helen and Milton,” said David Bazza, a 65-year-old man from Madeira Beach, Florida, whose home was destroyed by the storm surge. “This is the first time we’ve had a direct hit.”

In the immediate aftermath of the storm, FEMA provided $750 in assistance to help affected people across the U.S. pay for food, water, and other disaster-related supplies. And in the weeks following Hurricane Helen, FEMA issued $883 million for individual assistance and $524 million for government assistance. Some residents are reporting delays. “To date, I have not received a penny from FEMA. I received a penny from my insurance company. We were appreciated. We applied the day after (the hurricane). And here we sit,” says Bazza, who was approved for FEMA assistance in mid-October. Bazza invested at least $75,000 in renovating his home, he said. “How many people do you know that can do this?”

In response to questions about delays, FEMA said that once a victim is approved for assistance, they should receive direct deposits within 3 business days, or 7-10 business days if they choose a check. They pointed out to the applicants DisasterAssistance.gov portal, FEMA app or FEMA hotline (1-800-621-3362) to check the status of your application.

Floyd says FEMA officials who came to visit the community did a good job sending funds to restore cell towers and power. In fact, FEMA restored power to 99% of households and to about the same percentage of cell sites. But Floyd and others believe the federal presence came too late. “We saw an influx of volunteers from other states: Vermont, New Jersey, Illinois, Indiana, Virginia, Alabama, people coming from all over to help us in the first couple of weeks, before I even saw the FEMA representative. “, he says.

Five weeks later, residents are still living in the aftermath of the storm, despite an uncertain recovery timeline. Both Black Mountain and Madeira Beach have local economies dependent on tourism. Floyd, who serves on the local chamber board, said local officials are doing their best to help businesses, but the impact of the storm is enormous. “We’re hoping we can bring some of it (tourism) back, but we don’t know,” Floyd says. “I grew up in Florida, so I know how hurricanes affect regions. I’ve never seen anything like this before.”

Alex Matisse, founder of East Fork Pottery in Asheville, North Carolina, says his production facilities were lucky not to be damaged by the hurricane. The city was hit hard by Hélène and had already received significant rainfall prior to the storm, leaving the soil saturated and causing the French Broad River to overflow, power outages, and damaged cell tower lines. The lack of electricity made it impossible to make new pottery, but the East Fork Pottery was still able to sell existing pottery online.

“We had a big sale… and people showed up,” Matisse says. “(It’s) let’s keep our people on the payroll when so many people in Asheville were immediately laid off, especially because a lot of this has to do with tourism. Restaurants, hotels, all these businesses closed immediately.”

East Fork Pottery hired 19 additional workers to help fulfill the influx of orders they received after the hurricane. But Matisse worries about other local business owners. “One of the biggest problems is that Asheville is a ghost town, and October is (usually) the busiest season—that’s where everyone essentially makes their profit for the year.” In Asheville, water was restored a week ago, but residents are still under a boil water notice. While local businesses may be eager to reopen, Matisse notes that the costs of doing so are enormous. Restaurants will have to buy all the food again and hire people on payroll with no guarantee that customers will come. He said some hotels were able to reopen by purchasing “huge tanks” for drinking water, which Matisse said charged 10 cents a gallon and $600 for each tank delivery.

Physical reminders of the hurricane also affected residents. Buzza’s Florida home is in a climate with high humidity, which combined with flooding has made his home a growing habitat for mold. While he works to restore the home to make it livable, he says some of his neighbors did not take these precautions due to a lack of information about rebuilding the home after the flood. And beyond concerns about unsafe living conditions due to mold in homes, the 12-foot pile of trash outside his home is a grim reminder of the past five weeks. “Going through (the hurricane) and then continuing to see (the debris) in your face every single day is extremely difficult to deal with emotionally,” Bazza said.

Pinellas County, where Bazza lives, said in a statement. announcement in mid-October garbage collection would be a “major operation that would take months to complete.” The county estimates there are approximately 1 million cubic yards of residential trash in unincorporated areas (not including cities) alone.” In the city of Madeira Beach alone, more than 20,000 cubic yards of trash were collected as of 2017. latest report from October 22. However, residents are still unhappy. “I understand that this is a huge, huge task for FEMA to take on, but at the same time, this is not the first rodeo,” says Bazza, who is considering paying for private trash removal. “There have been other big storms, so I don’t understand the disruption to trash removal and money flowing to people.”

Matisse reports similar wait times for trash pickup in Asheville, which he says adds to “a very eerie feeling in a lot of places.” Landscape changes are also haunting. “So many natural places have changed so much—places that served as refuge. Rivers have changed, hiking trails have changed due to landslides. There’s a lot of that too.”

Overall, some residents say that while officials have ensured there is enough food and temporary housing for those in need, greater financial investment is needed immediately. Floyd worries FEMA assistance, which caps at $43,500 per person, won’t be enough because some insurance companies won’t cover water damage from the storm. “You hope there are a lot of other agencies that can help,” he says, “because I don’t think FEMA will be able to help as much as they should.”

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