State senator encourages storm victims to report costs; wants funding requests to reflect accurate numbers
Mariel Williams
editor@mitchellnews.com
State Sen. Ralph Hise focused on the lack of funding for small business disaster recovery and private road and bridge repair in a legislative update hosted by the Mitchell County Chamber of Commerce last Thursday.
The meeting was held at Grassy Creek Golf & Country Club. Hise spoke about the unprecedented nature of the destruction from Hurricane Helene (downgraded to a tropical storm after slowing down over land).
“I never thought that my most humbling experience would be in a Walmart parking lot, in a trailer, taking my first shower in 10 days,” Hise said. “And this entire community went through that.”
Justin Somers, the regional director for the Western North Carolina area for U.S. Sen. Ted Budd’s office, also spoke. Somers spoke about the effort to lobby Congress to do more for storm victims.
Hise spoke about the early response of both government agencies and volunteer organizations.
“The government response has been a typical bureaucracy response,” he said. “But the response that we have seen from private organizations, from churches — all across the country — I didn’t know the Amish [ever] came out of Pennsylvania.”
Hise spoke about the magnitude of the storm’s impact.
“I am still shocked at the overall devastation of this storm,” he said. “I was talking to [U.S.] Sen. [Thom] Tillis a couple of weeks ago now, and the damage area of this storm is probably larger than the state of Michigan.”
Hise said that the scope of the economic damage is going to require federal assistance, because it is simply beyond the economic capacity of the state and county governments.
Hise said that while the federal assistance received for disaster recovery so far has been helpful, it does not cover two of the most significant areas of need: small business recovery and rebuilding private roads and bridges.
Somers said that Budd has asked his staff to find ways to cut through the red tape holding up aid.
“Federal government is cumbersome and moves entirely too slow,” Somers said.
Hise said that it would be helpful, in his efforts to lobby Congress for more help for businesses, to have a more accurate idea of how much businesses have lost. After the meeting, Downtown Spruce Pine published a survey to collect more information on business losses and needs.
“We are currently gathering data from our business community to assess the impact of Hurricane Helene on local operations,” Executive Director Spencer Bost said in an email introducing the survey. “Your participation in this survey is important, as the information collected will help us better understand the challenges you are facing and will guide our efforts to support recovery initiatives with local, state, and federal officials. This survey will be conducted monthly to gain new and updated information from our businesses.”
The survey can be found online at https://form.jotform.com/250156756216154.