Getting rural recovery from Hurricane Helene right

What kind of assistance do rural communities such as Canton and Old Fort need?

TP: Our episodes tell the stories of Canton and Old Fort. How is your office working with those communities?

MC: GROW NC has folks stationed here in the state capital in Raleigh, but we have a roughly equal number stationed in western North Carolina, and their job is multifaceted. They are working out of their cars, going from community to community, providing that connective tissue. They are troubleshooting. They are informing local leaders about the availability of one program or another. They’re making sure that federal funds are getting out in a rapid fashion wherever possible.

One of the big things that we do is say, OK, look, this FEMA reimbursement for this town appears to be hung up. Why is that? Is it because that town didn’t submit a form that FEMA says they have to submit? Or is it because FEMA’s gotten everything, and for whatever reason, they just haven’t gotten around to disbursing funds?

So much of our work is understanding the needs of the community and making decisions about what scarce resources should be applied, and that includes a lot of federal funding. So when we, for example, talk about the Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) Community Development Block Grant Disaster Recovery (CDBG-DR) program and the more than $1 billion that the state already expects to see from that program, we hear from the community, we understand the needs and say, “OK, we’re going to use this much for single family housing, this much for multifamily housing, this much to get core infrastructure back online.”

So, it’s everything from identifying what major programs and efforts we want to pursue to troubleshooting these issues on behalf of our constituents.

TP: I often hear about real capacity constraints in rural places, where one person might be juggling multiple roles, and local governments have limited staff. From your perspective, how do these constraints affect the recovery process, and how are you helping address them?

MC: The limits are real and significant. Of the 114 municipalities in the affected region, a significant percentage of them do not have a full-time paid town manager. Those that do, even the larger municipalities, have workforces displaced by the storm. Not only are they dealing with an incomplete workforce, but the workforce was also probably lean to begin with.

Now they have outsized demands because of the recovery. That means planning and zoning and building permits and environmental reviews, never mind the constituent calls that arise. On top of that, when you’ve got damaged homes and properties, there are huge question marks when it comes to your property tax base. You have uncertain personnel, uncertain circumstances, outsized demands, and who knows what your budget looks like. That’s difficult. You’ve got to put together your annual budget to make things balanced, and that can be difficult even in non-disaster times when you have a sizable staff.

We’ve really focused on building a strong technical assistance apparatus. The North Carolina League of Municipalities, the Association of County Commissioners, the Councils of Governments, the UNC School of Government, and other associations that we’ve been working with are building a coordinated technical assistance system.

One of the early things that we did was distribute money so they could amp up their technical assistance apparati, and that could mean hiring consultants who help with planning, zoning, building, or legal issues. So much of what we hear is, “Look, we know what we need to do; we just don’t have the people to do it.” We’re continuing to try to bring folks who can help in that regard.

Long-term recovery groups in the days following a disaster are so important in providing disaster recovery assistance. These are local folks who provide food assistance, connect people with resources, or help someone who lost their home connect with what they need. All those important functions that too often can get overlooked. What we’ve done is work with philanthropic partners to financially support those long-term recovery groups to make sure that locals are empowered and have the resources, so they don’t worry about raising funds.

We want them really focused on the recovery efforts. Helping build capacity, build this connective tissue, and eliminate these obstacles has been an important part of our work.

What role does the federal government play in recovery efforts, and how is it working?

TP: Can you explain the importance of federal aid in the disaster recovery process?

MC: Federal resources are an essential part of recovery. One thing to keep in mind is that the federal government is always working on disaster recovery somewhere in the country. States aren’t always like that. States may have a disaster of significant magnitude once every two or five years. So, FEMA provides a great deal of technical assistance, resources, and know-how, and can bring non-federal resources to bear.

North Carolina’s entire annual budget is $33 billion. As I mentioned earlier, we have seen from Hurricane Helene alone an estimated $60 billion in damage. So, it’s very difficult for a single state to fully rebuild after a disaster on its own. That gets even more acute when you think about small towns that may have a budget of six figures or a few million dollars, and then they see tens of millions of dollars in infrastructure damage. That really puts them in a spot.

There are a great number of streams of federal funding that can play a tremendous role. It really is a key part of the equation.

TP: We heard mixed feedback about FEMA and the federal response. What’s worked well, and where do you see room for improvement?

MC: By and large, the people that we work with at FEMA and at other federal agencies are hardworking, responsive, and are doing the best that they can to help folks in western North Carolina. FEMA has a broad job that includes debris removal, rebuilding wastewater plants, getting hospitals back online, or getting utilities reconnected. It’s a set of very disparate functions.

It’s important to know that FEMA is not the only agency. The Small Business Administration (SBA), HUD, and many other agencies are involved. The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) also has a role with respect to agricultural recovery. There is relatively widespread agreement that FEMA and disaster recovery reforms are appropriate.

We have voiced some concerns about the sunsetting of the Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities (BRIC) program. North Carolina stood to receive more than $200 million. BRIC programs would have built more resilient infrastructure here. We’ve also voiced concerns about delayed FEMA reimbursements. Much of FEMA’s work is reimbursement-based—local governments spend, submit paperwork, and then get reimbursed, which can take a while.

In the national conversation now, given what’s happened in Texas, is the fact that the Secretary of Homeland Security has to sign off on every FEMA disbursement of more than $100,000. That can create a backlog in getting money for local governments that are already cash-strapped. Not having that money to float to your employees can be a real issue.

FEMA’s governing statutes haven’t been substantially updated in quite some time, so there are appropriate systemic reforms. That said, we really do appreciate all the hard work of FEMA in western North Carolina.

Which federal programs is North Carolina relying on for disaster recovery?

TP: What has been the state’s experience with federal recovery resources? What major programs have worked for the state?

MC: One of the difficult aspects of recovery is that there are so many funding streams. They are administered by a great number of departments that all have different requirements, obligations, and processes. It takes a lot just to be able to navigate across all those programs.

Some of these programs, like FEMA, have done a great deal of work to fund and execute our debris removal and rebuilding efforts. We have benefited from nearly half a billion dollars in FEMA’s Individual Assistance program, which goes right to individuals to rebuild their homes, to get personal property back, and to do other qualifying things.

We’ve also seen hundreds of millions of dollars in Small Business Administration loans, which has been significant.

We’re also working quickly to apply for Economic Development Administration (EDA) disaster funds. North Carolina hasn’t really made full use of those EDA funds in the past. So, when the federal government announced that they’re opening up $1.45 billion in EDA funds to qualifying disasters and that most of the programs are first come, first served, we realized we needed to go to local governments and say, “How can we help you develop a project and get it submitted?” because time is of the essence.

The CDBG-DR program is also an important source of funds. It is virtually unheard of for CDBG-DR funds to be released and brought to bear within a year of a disaster. There are all sorts of reviews, requirements, financial certifications, and contracts to be ironed out, and also required public comment periods, before those funds can be released. We want to move as quickly as possible. Among the cohort of qualifying disasters, we were the first to get our application in, so we’re hoping to beat that one-year mark.

How can the federal disaster recovery system improve, especially in rural areas?

TP: President Trump has issued an executive order to review FEMA’s effectiveness and potentially implement reforms, and bipartisan legislation has also been introduced. What are some of the key things you think should change at FEMA?

MC: It’s something that we’ve given quite a bit of thought to. Governor Stein co-chairs the Council of Governors and has been a leading voice on FEMA reform issues.

One thing that would impact local governments a lot is getting more money out faster and relying less on reimbursements. As mentioned earlier, local governments don’t have a lot of spare cash lying around to float excess expenses. Figuring out how to get money out faster with less red tape—that’s one thing that we have identified.

Another is that a lot of FEMA funds go toward temporary repairs. But then there are later federal funds, CDBG-DR among them, that are geared toward more permanent repairs. How can we unify and coordinate efforts so that local governments can have more streamlined access to funds for immediate disaster recovery efforts and long-term repairs?

Also, how do we make sure that we can better sync up the various federal funding streams and their purposes, so local governments don’t have to meet different sets of requirements for each federal program? How do we better sync everything up, so that the funding works together and ultimately becomes less costly if you do it right once?

TP: How can the disaster relief and recovery system better serve rural communities?

MC: We have to keep in mind that rural communities tend to have fewer resources and a harder time accessing available resources as quickly as larger communities. They also run into a great number of issues that may have existed before the disaster, and those tend to compound.

One of the main things that we can do for rural communities is provide streamlined ways to get resources on the ground with fewer required points of contact, so that one person doesn’t have to interface with a dozen agencies as they rebuild.

We can also provide more technical assistance, not just to tell folks what to do, but to help them do it. That involves helping folks with paperwork and approvals and showing them the funding streams available to enable a town to rebuild its downtown.

That means you have an opportunity to build in the way that you always wanted or change some things from how it was in the past. We’ve seen small towns have great ideas for what they want their downtowns to be but need to get those to the right level of crystallization. That kind of technical assistance doesn’t just come in the form of helping folks navigate the paperwork and be aware of the various programs, but how do you do the pre-work? Closing those access gaps is an area where we could do a great deal of good.