FEMA frustration boils over as Waynesville faces $3.8 million gap
Parts of Waynesville were devastated by Hurricane Helene in September 2024.
Cory Vaillancourt photo
More than 17 months after Hurricane Helene carved a path of destruction through Western North Carolina, the floodwaters have long since receded — but Waynesville officials say the federal reimbursement process remains mired in uncertainty, denials, reversals and what several described as mounting roadblocks.
During a Feb. 27 budget retreat, council members and staff walked methodically through a presentation by Waynesville Assistant Finance Director Charam Miller detailing the status of every FEMA project still open, pending or completed. The numbers were stark.
“The issue we have with a lot of this is that we followed [FEMA’s] advice from literally the week after the hurricane,” said Rob Hites, Waynesville’s town manager. “In every case that you’re seeing here, we are following FEMA’s advice to the letter, and now they’re coming back and saying, ‘Well, we’re not going to pay you for this.’ So we feel like we have been completely led astray by FEMA, and it’s irritating.”
The presentation opened with a slope repair project, estimated at $450,000.
“I think one of the most frustrating parts about this is that this has been on our damage inventory with FEMA since the hurricane,” Miller said. “Just last week, they told us it would not be FEMA-eligible.”
The town will pursue other funding opportunities, but those would likely result in the town coming out-of-pocket for at least 40% of the cost.
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Next, the discussion moved to the Wildcat subdivision, a $500,000 multi-phase repair.
“FEMA only wanted to give us $60,000 in reimbursement and $40,000 in mitigation costs, which would only cover $100,000, so we are going to be working through the appeals process with FEMA to see what our next steps would be,” said Miller.
Council also learned about the status of the Walnut Trail Bridge, which provides access to the town’s new wastewater treatment plant and carries an estimated $1.5 million repair cost.
“[The State of North Carolina] turned us down for a grant because we hadn’t been formally rejected by FEMA,” said Hites. “And then three days, four days later, we were formally rejected by FEMA.”
Hites said the town had been told informally that the rejection came because FEMA believed the bridge was owned by the Lake Junaluska Assembly.
“It’s not, by the way” Assistant Town Manager Jesse Fowler interjected.
The town will again try for the state grant, according to Hites.
Initially, FEMA advised the town to relocate improvements out of the floodplain, suggesting replacement and mitigation funds would be available. Hites said they followed that advice with the town’s proposed relocation of the dog park, estimated at $349,000. FEMA has signaled it would reimburse only up to roughly $150,000 to restore the dog park to pre-Helene condition, not to relocate it.
“We submitted the request to relocate the dog park last May,” Miller explained. “They lost that request three times.”
The town’s FEMA contact, Miller said, had seen his own supervisor change 13 times since the storm, prompting derisive laughter from council members and staff.
“We constantly have to talk to new folks who say, ‘Well, I don’t know anything about this,’” Hites said.
The Bi-Lo Pavilion, estimated at $106,000 to rebuild, is another sticking point. FEMA has offered roughly $35,000, arguing only submerged components should be repaired.
“We sent them a very long letter outlining their statutes and why we chose to rebuild and not [just] repair,” Miller said. “We have not heard anything back about that.”
The Vance Street Ballfield Complex carries a $353,000 price tag. Of roughly $100,000 submitted for architecture and engineering, FEMA deemed $60,000 unallowable and offered $40,000.
“They started pushing for me to go in and sign that paperwork, and I said I didn’t feel comfortable signing paperwork that was going to short the town money,” said Miller.
The Recreational Ballfield Complex, estimated at $274,000, faces similar treatment. FEMA offered only $44,000 of $130,000 submitted.
Vehicle losses total about $300,000. FEMA has indicated it would only reimburse deductibles totaling roughly $3,500.
“I am currently working with them to find out what they would be willing to reimburse and why it’s different for us than some other communities, that their vehicles were fully reimbursed,” Miller said. The town’s insurance company has paid a portion of the vehicle replacement costs, but not enough to repurchase everything the town had before Helene.
Across all open projects, the estimated town exposure stands at $3,832,000. Current estimates of $500,000 in probable reimbursement from FEMA would be “generous,” Miller said.
“So right now, FEMA has effectively said, ‘We will reimburse the citizens of Waynesville 13% of the damage that has was caused by Helene?’” Alderman Jon Feichter asked.
The 13% figure is in line with estimates of federal reimbursements provided to the state thus far.
Hites did have good things to say about Western North Carolina’s federal representatives; Sen. Ted Budd has a staffer dedicated to Helene recovery, with whom town officials had a nearly three-hour conference. Congressman Chuck Edwards, whose rural district bore the brunt of the storm, has been “accommodating” and arranged two video conferences with FEMA representatives that were “absolutely useless,” according to Hites.
“We feel like that FEMA is not paying the slightest bit of attention to our Washington elected officials,” he said.
Edwards, who sits on the House appropriations committee and supposedly authored a $110 billion continuing resolution in December 2024, has been roundly criticized for failing to satisfy the needs of his storm-stricken constituents. The bill is projected to bring only between $9 billion and $15 billion in federal recovery funding to North Carolina — of more than $60 billion in damage claimed by the state.
Further up the chain of responsibility, Michael Whatley, the former chair of the Republican National Committee who is now seeking the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by retiring Sen. Thom Tillis, was appointed Helene “recovery czar” by President Donald Trump on Jan. 24, 2025.
That FEMA needs substantial reform is undisputable by most people, including Trump; on the same day Trump “put Michael in charge of making sure everything goes well,” Trump established the FEMA Review Council, to be composed of no more than 20 members and co-chaired by Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and Department of War Secretary Pete Hegseth. Whatley was appointed to the council April 28, 2025.
The council was charged with collecting public input and discussing potential FEMA reform and was ordered to hold its first public meeting 90 within days its establishment. A report on the council’s findings was to be presented to Trump within 180 days of that meeting, but the council blew through both of those deadlines.
Its first public meeting was held on May 20, nearly a month late. The 180-day report, which should have been due in mid-September but because of the late start ultimately became due around Nov. 16, never materialized.
The council’s charter was originally set to expire on Jan. 24 of this year, even though the report was never delivered, so Trump reauthorized the council through March 25. As of press time on March 3, the report has still not been produced.
“We’re expecting to be able to finish up that report in the next several weeks,” Whatley told The Smoky Mountain News Feb. 2. “We will get those recommendations to the president.”
Last December, Matt Calabria, director of Gov. Josh Stein’s GROW-NC recovery office, told SMN he’d only spoken to Whatley once, nearly a year after the storm. A subsequent public records request by SMN found that there is no proof of Whatley ever speaking to North Carolina Department of Emergency Management Director Will Ray, his Chief of Staff Don Campbell or Assistant Director of Recovery Joe Stanton.
On Feb. 2, Whatley told SMN that he’d instead been speaking with county-level officials and with Sharon Decker, who took a leave of absence from the Tryon International Equestrian Center leadership team to serve with GROW-NC. Decker, however, didn’t even assume her role with the recovery group until more than eight months after Helene.
Hites extended his appreciation to Gov. Josh Stein and his staff, but said they appear to be experiencing the same problems with federal responsiveness.
“Everyone seems to run into this mysterious force in Washington, and they don’t just get told ‘no,’ they just get no answers,” Hites said. “They absolutely get no answers, and that’s the frustrating thing for all of us.”
At one point, Miller said she spends “considerable” time on the phone with FEMA, “probably 15 to 20 times a week.”
Feichter again pondered the implications of inefficiency and asked town staff to try to document the number of hours employees had spent dealing with FEMA.
“Sitting here, listening to you guys talk about the amount of time that you have spent pursuing what’s right, that’s another cost that will never, ever be reimbursed,” he said.
Council member Anthony Sutton, a member of the American Flood Coalition who like others in the region has visited Washington, D.C. to inquire about the missing reimbursements, suggested another trip was in order.
“We can coordinate a big group from Western North Carolina to go,” Sutton said. “I think the only thing that would work is to embarrass them.”
The storm itself lasted hours. The recovery has entered its 17th month. Waynesville is now suffering through its second budget cycle without adequate recovery funding —leading the town’s budget planners to look for any ways possible to avoid passing the cost of a failed recovery onto taxpayers during difficult economic times.
“We’re not going to give up,” said Mayor Gary Caldwell.
