Hurricane Helen, in 2025, was the deadliest storm to hit the U.S. since 2017, and it hit Western North Carolina hardest. With support from the Fund, Chris Kromm dug into recovery efforts over the last two years for a story for Facing South, co-published in The Nation. His reporting found that North Carolina’s recovery remains painfully slow and uneven, hampered by a federal response that has been starved of money and hobbled by turmoil inside President Trump’s FEMA. According to Kromm, Western North Carolina has become a testing ground for what happens when increasingly destructive disasters collide with a weakened response system – and whether the U.S. government can still deliver when catastrophe strikes. While the Trump Administration has backed away, for now, from abolishing FEMA outright, much of the agency has been eviscerated during Trump’s second term, and Helene recovery efforts show the toll.
Two years after Helene, North Carolina struggles to rebuild amid FEMA turmoil, grantee finds
