The Daily Signal - What Life Is Like in North Carolina After Hurricane Helene

Episode Date: October 9, 2024

LLife is on pause in Hendersonville, North Carolina. Hurricane Helene devastated the city, located about 25 miles south of Asheville. Most people have not returned to work, and in some instances, there is no workplace to return to, because floodwaters swept entire buildings from their foundations.  Hendersonville resident Alexander Potter told The Daily Signal neighbors have been the first line of defense in his community as people swung into action to ensure the elderly were taken care of and no one went hungry.  Alexander anticipates the initial cleanup will take months. After spending several days on the ground talking with locals like Alexander and seeing the devastation firsthand, The Daily Signal’s Tim Kennedy says it will likely take years for the community to rebuild.  Hurricane Helene really was the perfect storm dumping about 20 inches of rain in mountainous communities in the southeast and causing rivers, like the French Broad River in Asheville, North Carolina, to flood and become a deadly force, washing away roads, bridges, and buildings.  Kennedy joins “The Daily Signal Podcast” to share the stories of people such as Dianne Messer, whose entire mobile home community was affected by the storm, and to discuss how the locals view the federal government’s response to the hurricane.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Get the yes you've been waiting for at Capital One.ca.ca. slash yes. Terms and conditions apply. This is the DailySiddle podcast for Wednesday, October 9th. I'm Virginia Allen. Hurricane Helene devastated parts of the southeast, especially North Carolina and the Asheville community. This is a mountain town that's not used to getting hurricanes, but we have entire small towns in and around Asheville just wiped out. While the Daily Signal's Tim Kennedy was recently on the ground there, he had the opportunity to meet a number of local. to meet folks that have driven up from across the South to learn how they can help and be a part of the recovery efforts. He joins us here on the show in just a moment to explain what he saw.

Stay tuned for my conversation with Tim Kennedy after this. This is Rob Lewy from The Daily Signal. In today's media landscape, it's more important than ever to have a trusted source of news and conservative commentary. That's why we are asking for your support. Your donation helps us continue our mission of delivering accurate, factual reporting, on the issues that matter most to you. Whether it's $5 or $500, every contribution makes a difference.

Visit dailysignal.com slash donate to help us keep Americans informed and fight for conservative values. The Daily Signal is your voice for the truth. The Daily Signal's news producer, Tim Kennedy, joins us now. Tim, you are on the other side of the mic this time. Thanks for being willing to be in studio.

You wear a lot of hats here at the Daily Signal. So thanks for coming into studio to talk on the mic. Someone's got to do it. Thank you so much, Virginia, for having me. Well, you were just down in Asheville, North Carolina, about a week or so after Hurricane Helene. That whole area was just devastated. I think it's helpful to begin this conversation by talking about why this area was hit

so hard. Obviously, this was a massive hurricane, but there were some factors that really made Asheville really vulnerable to the amount of rain. Just kind of explain what those were. Yeah. So to start off with Asheville itself and the surrounding communities are essentially a valley. It's very mountainous. There's the fabled Blue Ridge Mountains going all throughout.

And at the center or in the dip of that valley, you have the French Broad River. And traditionally, obviously, you know, Asheville can be susceptible during wintertime to blizzards and some power outages from that. but never from like heavy flooding like the flooding we saw over a week ago, starting on September 27th when Hurricane Helene just ravaged through the community essentially and overflowed the French Broad River and with it any and all communities that came along it from Greenville and South Carolina all the way up through Asheville, all the way up north to Aboon, North Carolina and so forth, even into parts of Southern Virginia as well. Wow. Was the scene on the ground what you thought it was going to be? So I had covered the Lahaina Wildfires for the Daily Signal a little over a year ago in Maui. And there you went in and it was a very like pinpoint area where there was just total devastation, destruction. Everything was burned down to essentially the foundation. And going into it, I kind of had that background and a kind of.

experience in my head where I expected to see some trees ravaged. I'm from New Jersey originally. I grew up there during Hurricane Sandy. So I'm familiar to like the scenery of sort of like maybe boats like, you know, torn away from their mooring and whatnot and some trees knocked down. But I was absolutely blown away just about the amount and the height and the width and the radius of the destruction again coming off of that French Broad River. It just imagined just like it seems it's almost like you're watching Jurassic Park where they go and they try to like hunt down like a T-Rex and they like look in the forest and there's this whole just like swath of trees that are like knocked down. So just like imagine that and it being like, you know, a football field and whips going like for miles and miles and miles of just like trees knocked down houses ripped from their foundation and just like thrown completely down the river boats again and cars just like flung about. So it's just very, I guess, concentrate in that sense, but the river obviously runs throughout

Asheville, Hendersonville, Henderson County, and like the surrounding low-lying areas as well. So it touches and affects all of it. Did you talk to anyone that lost their home? Yes. I talked to a couple people. I took a day trip out to Lake Lurr, which is about 45 minutes, 48 minutes southeast. of Asheville and there was one lady, she was a local restaurateur who had opened up her doors to feed, you know, needy and hungry residents, National Guardsmen, volunteers. And when I caught up with her,

she had told me that she was, she'd be helicopter evacked from her home, which was in and around, I believe, Chimney Rock, which is one of the hardest hit communities close to Lake Lur. And I asked her if she had been back to her home ever since she said no so she was essentially just like had to leave with like the clothing on her back and a backpack and she had been living out of her restaurant which she was also volunteering at and running as a relief center for about a week at that time I caught up with other residents who were going to her restaurant who had their like they just there was one group an older gentleman and his wife whose home they just saw just like like go in a landslide essentially so yeah no there are like homes like completely destroyed for sure.

You met a really sweet woman, Diane Messer. You posted a video of her on your ex account. It's just a sweet, sweet woman, sweet conversation. And she lives kind of in a small community and some interesting situations, even a woman in her community who went into labor the night of the hurricane. Pretty wild story there. But what did she have to tell you? So pretty much when I arrived in Nashville, I had, you know, little, I had very baseline understanding. I was very ignorant to the geography. And so I started out my, my trek at a Waffle House, which is the, you know, as any good Southerner would. Yes, you know, it's where, it's a well of ideas. And so it's the town watering hole in a sense. And so I went and I was chatting up this one gentleman who lived in a mobile home community in Hendersonville. So this town is about 30 minutes south of Asheville. And he was telling me about how one of his neighbor's houses essentially was cut in half by an oak tree that fell during the hurricane.

So, and they were without power and they were going into their 10th day without power without running water. And so I was like, well, I got to go check this place out because obviously, you know, when we turn on the news and we hear what the mainstream media is telling us, they're telling us all about the River Arts District in downtown Asheville, but they're not really getting into the nitty gritty of the outlying communities in and around Asheville, which were the hardest hit by the hurricane. When you go look at the death tolls and those who are actually perishing from it,

there are from what, you know, you might coin as the sticks, so to say, the areas in and around Asheville itself that were hardest hit, those living down by the river itself. So I went to this mobile home community and it was Big Oak Park. Again, they were without power for 10 days. It's a 55 plus community. A lot of individuals at risk. overall, you know, low socioeconomic class, but just a very, I pulled up like at, you know, 8 a.m. on a Saturday and this nice lady, again, Diane Messer, just comes out of her home and

greets me and it's very friendly and she just takes me on a whole tour of the community. She walks me through her whole process from the start of the hurricane on September 27th till then, you know, what it was like being visited by FEMA officials, who's come to help them out, and just like the whole story from there. And, you know, in her bringing me around the community, I was, you know, introduced to other individuals who lived there. And, again, very similar story, very at risk. People who are at least, you know, in their 60s, maybe even 70s, living alone.

A lot of them, again, Big Oak Park, as the name entails. They have a lot of big oak trees. And so during the storm, a lot of them fell down on their homes, but it also blocked all the roads in and out of this community. Okay. So I had residents telling me that they couldn't even leave their homes to go out for supplies for five days. Wow.

And that's five days without power. Some of them without running water. So just a very, you know, difficult time. And in her recanting, her whole experience throughout then, she, I have. asked her, you know, what were the most difficult parts of it? And she said it was the lack of communication with the outside world. There was initially a lot of misinformation given to this community. And this community consisted of about 40 mobile homes, but that's just homes. There's obviously families that live in those homes. And, you know, they were told once by local authorities,

don't call 911. And then at some point it was, oh, you can call 911, but only for, you know, very if you're in an in you know if you're in an emergency at that moment so a lot of sort of miscommunication um i had a gentleman his name was alexander he took me on the back of their golf car essentially you know drove me around the community and also brought me around town he's a manager at a local uh papa johns there who's serving you know meals to all the you know relief workers and volunteers and He was just like, you know, going from home to home saying, oh, this, you know, this person, she's 86. She lives there.

Tree fell in her house. You know, this family gave birth or the wife went into labor during the storm because of all the stress. And so that's what Diane Messer was referring to as their, you know, their miracle out of all this that this little girl was born. Unfortunately, she's born into her home that will probably be condemned because the tree fell on it. So, and, you know, a lot of these residents felt very, um, the miscommunication was one part, but they felt incredibly, but trade's probably too strong of a word to use, but they felt kind of passed over or left out because they began to, you know, again, this is a community of 40 mobile homes. Throughout the 10 days from the storm to when I visited, a lot of the communities around them

were receiving power, were having their lines repaired. And they had stories of, you know, utility workers and FEMA representatives coming to them, midweek, you know, working for a couple days and then just leaving. And they were confused if they would ever get back online. Nobody was reaching out to them if they needed any support, any help. And so they thought that they were just forgotten. That someone just like looked over, like someone just, like the world just forgot about them. And so luckily though, I just received a text today from Alexander who lives there and he told me that they are finally getting power back now. Wow. But that's, you know, 12, 11 days since then. So that's insanity in itself. And really it's the, it's the neighborly and local response that

the best response because, you know, there wasn't the local officials, state officials, federal officials, they didn't come to dig them out. They had to essentially bring out chainsaws and cut their way out. And so it was, you know, very heartwhelming to hear about, but it's sad that it had to come to that. Yeah. Talk a little bit about the response, if you would, what you saw about neighbors helping neighbors, people coming from outside the community to help. Oh, it's overwhelmed. I mean, again, like I just, like I said, the local response was the best response. I went to local breweries that had shut down all their operations and had also converted their production from beer to bottled water and gallon jugs of water.

Again, this guy Alexander, who's the manager at the local Papa John's, he was just working, you know, 24 hours a day, feeding all the volunteer workers. And the volunteer workers, they themselves were just people that worked at churches, people that own their own helicopters and were doing air drops and air revaks and essentially, you know, there was no mass coordinated effort. It was just people getting together, seeing something was wrong and pitching it on their own time within their own communities. There was no larger web.

And again, there was no larger coordinated effort. So that was just like amazing to see that it's like these little hot spots of eight. going on. That was... Did you see any FEMA workers or any official representation from the federal government there? So the only time I saw FEMA workers was when I went to Lake Lur and this wasn't even at the lake itself because when you get down close to the lake, that's where it was the local restaurateur. It opened her doors to feeding, you know, hungry mouths and whatnot. It was a little bit up the road. It was like out of a strip mall. They had a RV that they had converted into workstation and they had tables out and people in, you know, FEMA fatigues essentially signing people

up for disaster relief. This is the, you know, $750 checks that we keep on hearing about. They're the ones who are helping them with their application process. To the best of my knowledge, obviously, there was no like handing out of supplies. They were surrounded by locals that were handing out free coffee, handing out groceries, caring for one another, but they were just there to facilitate the direct deposit of money and insurance and the whole nine yards into people's bank accounts, which is important, but that was really the only time I saw FEMA. I saw some, a lot of more of like, I saw the North Carolina National Guard in Lake Lur doing some recovery effort there.

I saw some North Carolina officials. There were utility workers, like every, where I stayed, and then everywhere around Hendersonville, every single, you know, most. Motel, all their parking lots were just filled with utility trucks from like all over America. I saw, you know, New Hampshire, Missouri, Florida. They were just like like a sea of utility trucks. They've all responded. Yeah.

So it was pretty incredible to see all the most of any of all the energy companies were there, Duke Energy, the whole nine yards. But also, again, like people in private companies from, you know, as far south as Florida, whatnot. So it was, yeah, no, just an incredible. local response. That's powerful. When you talk to the local people, did they feel pretty positive? Sort of like, you know, this is better that we just have a local response. Are they frustrated with the federal government? Do they think the government's doing enough? Do they kind of just want them to stay out? What was the attitude among the locals? It's split, I would say. For those not familiar, like myself before this trip to the Asheville region, when you kind of delve into the socioeconomic and

politics of it, you kind of have this bubble that's Asheville itself. which is a very, you know, progressive, artsy community surrounded by, again, what, you know, people colloquially might like coin the sticks. A lot of people calling themselves rednecks and calling their neighbors rednecks, which is just, you know, normal down there. But as a couple northeasterners, which I'm sure we both are, it's very, you hear it is more of an insult, but they wear it like a badge of pride. So that was, like, fascinating to see.

But so you have like two ends of the spectrum there. And no one in the middle. Interesting. But to answer your question, though, about the perception of, you know, federal aid and non-federal aid, there was this sort of, I hate to even call it a political divide, but there definitely was a worldview divide where those from the outlying communities were not necessarily, they welcomed federal aid, but they were very critical about the lack of it at first and just how, again, like that RV I was discussing at a strip malls at Lake Lur,

I was talking to a gentleman serving, you know, free coffee and he had been serving it there since not this past Sunday, but two Sundays ago. So the first Sunday after the hurricane hit, so over 10, honestly, about 10 days for him. And he pointed at the FEMA truck and he's like, I've been here 10 days, but those jokers just arrived four days ago. So they're very, they're definitely keeping on them on their toes. Granted, when I talk to people within Asheville itself, they are very much of the mind that they have a finite amount of resources, they being FEMA, and they're doing the best they can. But it's on us, the community to step up and step in for one another. We can't rely on the government to solve all of our problems, to which I say, that's wonderful. Now, let's have that opinion on every other government program in existence. If you could just take that mentality and spread it. amongst everywhere else, that would be great.

But alas, yeah, alas, yeah. So it was kind of a, it was a mixed review of people saying, you know, being critical and also welcoming of FEMA. Sure. What about when it came to kind of that FEMA conversation and talking to folks about their opinion? I know you ask people, what would your message be to the Biden administration? you know, if you could talk to Kamala Harris and Joe Biden, what would you say to them?

What were some of the answers that you got back from people? Yeah, and I asked people of all, again, not asking them who they would vote for in the upcoming election, but people of whom I was served, I assumed were of all political stripes. The question you just said, if you could talk to your, you know, your highest elected officials, what would it say and why? And an overwhelming majority of people had the same. answer and it's that we need to start caring for Americans first. We can't look to the world and the needs of others before the needs of American citizens putting that paramount above all else.

A lot of people asking for more funding for FEMA, for more assistance there. So it was just a very, you know, a lot of people referencing, you know, illegal aliens and whatnot and the whole fiasco there with FEMA. And I know that upon like further research, people are saying, oh, well, there's two buckets of money. There's the federal disaster relief aid bucket, and then there's the housing and local communities bucket. I think at the end of the day, people aren't too concerned about the nuances of, you know,

separate fundings and the accounting there. They're more so just upset that why do we even have a second bucket in the first place? So there should only be one bucket and should be the American bucket. And so it was just, you know, fascinating to hear very, very palpable. Yeah. The recovery is going to be long in North Carolina. In seeing it for yourself, the situation on the ground, what are we looking at timeline-wise? I mean, will that community ever be the same? I think I would ask residents that and I again this nice gentleman Alexander the manager at the Papa Johns who took me on this whole Lengthy ride along around Harrisonville

I asked him the same question he's like probably at least six months for the recovery I actually asked the initial question of you know everyone is in this sort of like disaster Relief mentality right now like it's not business as usual businesses are not open people are not going to work people don't have homes to go to people are obviously volunteering their time, money and capital to help one another, which is extremely heartwhelming to see. But I asked, you know, how long will this exist for? And he says at least a couple months.

And then after that, probably if I had a, what they maybe told me was a year. If I had to ballpocket myself, I would say a couple of years for sure. I think that the homes in around the French Broad River, I mean, need to be totally rebuilt. communities like chimney rock need to be totally rebuilt. There's just nothing to, there's just nothing to go off of. Everything's been, this foundation has been swept away. The town, like the, if you've ever like been to, you know, Mount Vesuvius in Pompeii, for instance, that whole, after the volcano erupted, it completely transformed the topography and geography of the surrounding area in Naples. And that's essentially what has happened to this whole region is that the actual physical geography of it is totally different from what it was two weeks prior.

Because you have roads that are just gone. Just totally swept away. Part of the, I think it was the Blue Ridge Parkway. I think it's called leading west of Asheville. Part of that was just swept away and it's still closed. So very, yeah, a lot of a long road ahead. Certainly. And their recovery.

Yeah. Well, Tim, you have put out so many great videos. You're continuing to put them out as far as what you saw. Awesome. Aerial footage. Devastating aerial footage. But just awesome in the sense of getting that perspective of, okay, this is actually the situation on the ground.

Tell us, how do we follow you on social media? How do we see all these videos? Yeah. You can follow me at Tim Kennedy, Jr. 1. And definitely be sure to keep checking out the Daily Signal. Awesome. Well, the Daily Signal, news producer, Tim Kennedy, Tim. Thank you for being willing to go down there.

Thanks for your work on this. Appreciate all your reporting. Thank you so much. Well, with that, you're going to leave it there for today's show. Thanks for joining us here on the Daily Signal podcast. Don't forget to hit that subscribe button so you never miss out on our brand new shows. We will see you right back here at 5 p.m. For our Top News Edition, where we cover the news of the day, including keeping an eye on the next hurricane, Hurricane Milton and what's happening there.

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