The number is $53.6 billion. That’s the estimate from the N.C. Office of State Budget and Management for the damage Helene inflicted on Western North Carolina. Those are just dollars; in the bigger picture, lives have been lost, transformed and forever changed. 

Homeowners and renters in North Carolina may be eligible for FEMA Rental Assistance if they cannot live in their homes because of damage due to Tropical Storm Helene. 

To the Editor:

I was finally able to get through the travel hazards back to Western North Carolina six days after Helene’s historic fury had torn through our region devastating roadways, major infrastructure, entire communities and thousands of lives.

The recent “Rock for Relief: A WNC Flood Benefit Festival” was able to garner more than $32,000 in its one-day musical extravaganza. 

With the North Carolina General Assembly’s preliminary $273 million relief bill in the rearview mirror, Western North Carolina Sen. Kevin Corbin (R-Macon) is looking down the road at the General Assembly’s next move — a billion-dollar relief bill coming Oct. 24. During a recent meeting with Haywood County officials, Corbin spent about an hour trying to learn what, exactly, the needs are.  

“I can promise you what you won't get,” Corbin said. “You won't get things you don't ask for.”

Anyone on the internet knows that it can be a place of negativity and division. But it’s also a powerful tool for connection, and in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene, Crystal Cochran harnessed that connection to build a community of volunteers that provided vital assistance to thousands in Western North Carolina. 

Dan Messer would have preferred to host a livestock auction on Monday, but instead he was working one in a string of countless dawn-to-midnight days coordinating aid distribution out of the WNC Regional Livestock Center in Canton. 

Agriculture Secretary Thomas J. Vilsack declared a natural disaster in North Carolina based on losses caused by drought that occurred beginning Nov. 1, 2023, and continuing.