Communities are trying to rebuild after Hurricane Helene and Milton

For the first two days after Hurricane Helene, Ken Floyd, a 41-year-old general manager of the Monte Vista Hotel in Black Mountain, North Carolina, was in a state of stress. The father of three was stuck at home with his family when a landslide ravaged the area, downing trees and destroying roads, leaving him unable to control others. “It was just a constant worry: When can we get out of here?” says Floyd. “I was worried and concerned about my staff at the hotel. I wanted to make sure everything was okay.”

The Monte Vista Hotel became a meeting point for the community after two managers took action to feed hungry guests. “About two days later I was finally able to get out… and they had gone from feeding those 10 guys to feeding the whole city,” Floyd said. “I saw hospitality as the core of it. I’ve been doing this for 20 years and I really saw it that day for the first time.”

But despite local recovery efforts, some residents are feeling frustrated by delays in federal aid — and worried whether the government will meet the moment. “This was one 1000 year stormFloyd says, echoing meteorologists who have said the chance of a hurricane like Helene, with such rainfall, in any given year is less than 0.1%. Floyd, calling for more financial support from state and federal officials, including FEMA, says rebuilding after the storm is difficult given the circumstances new hurricane-proof building guidelines they must follow and delays in federal aid. “People are trying to move back in and rebuild and fix up their homes, and now they’re being told they have to raise it or they can’t build it all,” he says.

More than 100 people in the state — and at least 228 in the U.S. — died as a result of the storm, nearly half of whom were from Buncombe County, North Carolina’s western county, home to the small mountain town of Black Mountain. The region was devastated by Hurricane Helene on September 28, killing some nearby communities, such as Busick, North Carolina, with more than 30 centimeters of raincausing historic flooding. The North Carolina Budget Office estimated the recovery would cost about $53 billion to help fix the problems more than 600 bridges destroyed, 7,000 locations with road damage, and more.

Helene’s fallout extends beyond North Carolina. Hurricane Helene made landfall near Perry, Florida on September 26 as a Category 4 hurricane, bringing a 15-foot storm surge to the Big Bend. according to preliminary databefore also affecting Georgia, South Carolina, Virginia, Tennessee and Alabama.

After Helene, Milton, a Category 3 hurricane, arrived on October 9, further damaging Florida and 150 tornado warnings in the state.

“We always find ways to recover, but this last one, or the last two, was kind of a one-two punch between Helene and Milton,” said David Buzza, a 65-year-old man from Madeira Beach, Florida, whose home was destroyed by the storm surge. “It’s the first time we’ve had direct hits.”

In the immediate aftermath of the storms, FEMA provided $750 in Critical Needs Assistance to help affected individuals in the U.S. pay for food, water and other disaster-related supplies. And in the weeks after Hurricane Helene, FEMA has distributed $883 million in individual assistance and $524 million in public assistance. Some residents have reported delays. “To date, I have not received a cent from FEMA. I received a cent from my insurer. We have been judged. We filed the claim the day after (the hurricane). And here we are,” said Buzza, who was approved for FEMA assistance in mid-October. Buzza has invested at least $75,000 to help repair his home, he says. “How many people you know can do that?”

FEMA did not respond to requests for comment on delays in the payment rollout.

Floyd says FEMA officials who came to visit the community did a good job sending money to restore cell towers and power. In fact, FEMA has restored power to 99% of homes and about the same percentage of cell sites. But Floyd and others say the federal presence came too late. “We saw an influx of volunteers from other states, from: Vermont, New Jersey, Illinois, Indiana, Virginia, Alabama, people came from all over to help us in the first few weeks, before I even saw a FEMA official” , he says.

Five weeks later, residents are still navigating life after the hurricane amid an uncertain recovery timeline. Both Black Mountain and Madeira Beach have local economies that rely on tourism. Floyd, a member of the local chamber council, says local officials are working hard to help businesses, but the impact of the storm is enormous. “We’re hoping we can get some of that tourism back, but we don’t know,” Floyd said. “I grew up in Florida, so I’m familiar with the impact hurricanes have on areas. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

Alex Matisse, founder of East Fork Pottery in Asheville, North Carolina, says his production facilities were fortunate not to be affected by the storm. The city was hit hard by Helene and had already received significant rainfall prior to the hurricane, causing the ground to become oversaturated and the French Broad Rivers to overflow, knocking out power and affecting transmission towers. The lack of electricity made it impossible to make new crockery, but East Fork Pottery was still able to sell existing pottery online.

“We had a big sale… and people showed up,” Matisse says. “(That) lets keep our people on the payroll when so many people in Asheville were immediately laid off, especially since so much of this is driven by tourism. Restaurants, hotels, all those businesses closed immediately.”

East Fork Pottery has hired 19 additional employees to help fill the high volume of orders they received in the wake of the hurricane. But Matisse is concerned about other local entrepreneurs. “One of the biggest problems is that Asheville is a ghost town and October is (usually) the busiest season – it’s when everyone basically makes their profits for the year.” Asheville saw its water restored a week ago, but residents are still there under a boil water notice. While local businesses may want to reopen, Matisse points out that the cost of doing so is a huge undertaking. Restaurants have to buy all their food again and put people on the payroll with no guarantee that customers will come. Some hotels, he says, have been able to reopen by purchasing “huge tanks” for drinking water, which Matisse says charges 10 cents per gallon and $600 for each tank delivery.

The physical memories of the hurricane have also affected residents. Buzza’s Florida home is in a climate with high humidity, which, combined with flooding, made his home a growing habitat for mold. While he is busy renovating houses to make his home livable, he says some of his neighbors have not taken these precautions due to the lack of information on rehabilitating houses after floods. And in addition to fears of unsafe living conditions due to mold in homes, the 10-foot pile of rubble outside his home is a grim reminder of the past five weeks. “Going through (the hurricane) and then seeing (the debris) in your face every day is extremely difficult to deal with emotionally,” Buzza said.

Pinellas County, where Buzza lives, said in a announcement mid-October that removing debris would be a “major operation that will take months. The province estimates that there are approximately 1 million cubic meters of residential waste in unincorporated areas alone (excluding cities). More than 20,000 cubic meters of debris have been collected in the city of Madeira Beach alone last report on October 22. However, residents remain frustrated. “I understand it’s a monumental task for FEMA to take on, but at the same time, this isn’t the first rodeo,” said Buzza, who is considering paying for the private removal of the debris. “There have been other major storms, so I don’t understand the disruptions in debris removal and the flow of money to people.”

Matisse reports similar wait times for debris collection in Asheville, which he says adds a “very eerie feeling in so many places.” Changes in the landscape were also spooky. ‘So many natural places have changed so much – places that were a refuge. Rivers have changed, hiking trails have been altered by landslides. There’s so much of that too.”

Overall, some residents say that while officials have ensured there is enough food and provided temporary housing to those in need, greater immediate financial investments are needed. Floyd fears that the FEMA assistance, which amounts to a maximum of $43,500 per person, will be insufficient as some insurance companies will not cover water damage from the hurricane. “You hope there will be a lot of other agencies that can help,” he says, “because I don’t think FEMA will be able to help as much as it should.”