Politics

Mountains to Raleigh: Help!

By Bill Moss, Published: September 30, 2024

To: Gov. Roy Cooper, Senate Leader Phil Berger, House Speaker Tim Moore

From: The people of Western North Carolina

First, an invitation. As soon as you can safely do so, book a car or a flight to the N.C. mountains.

Words, photos, Facebook posts or official reports from emergency personnel cannot convey the magnitude of the destruction nor hint at the breadth and duration of recovery and rebuilding. It’s going to take years; some towns and communities will never recover. As one resident in Hickory Nut Gorge put it as he narrated a video of a muddy river in front of collapsed stores: “Chimney Rock is gone.”

For a while it was unknown whether Lake Lure dam would hold; the pressure was building as the river rose. If the dam were to collapse, dozens of not hundreds of homes would be washed downstream.

Of course, power, cell phone coverage, food and water are the immediate concerns. We’re told in official dispatches that food and water are en route, by truck and by air. Duke Energy forecasts that most customers will have the lights back on Friday night — thanks to 18,000 linemen from 19 states.

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The magnitude of Helene’s destruction is felt in big ways and small. It’s inconvenient to be cut off from TV news and the internet updates we’re all addicted to. We’ve seen long lines at gas stations after tropical storms and big snowstorms. But we’ve never seen the situation at the only supermarket open in miles, our Highland Lake Road Ingles: the line of buggies filled with groceries started at the tomatoes (soon as you make a right into the store) snaked around the meat counter in the rear and looped back up a center aisle.

Hours after we started drafting this column, Senate leader Phil Berger responded with a statement acknowledging the “heartbreaking and devastating images” from the North Carolina mountains. The disaster declaration covers 25 counties — exactly a quarter of the state’s total.

"I've been in contact with the senators in the area and other state and local officials as they continue to assess the damage and impact of Hurricane Helene,” he said. “It will take time to know the full catastrophic nature of this storm, but the General Assembly stands ready to take the necessary steps to help our neighbors in Western North Carolina.”

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Helene is a little like the coronavirus pandemic. We date some political and cultural trends to before and after Covid. For a lifetime — when it comes to roads, familiar scenes, neighboring homes (or our own), our visceral response to a forecast of a torrential downpour — the dividing line will be before and after Helene.

Fear, confusion, imagined consequences and bad motives characterized much of our socio-cultural response to Covid. In some ways, Helene is similar. Our EMTs, doctors, nurses and medical administrators are overwhelmed; they’re shorthanded; patients and families are panicked.

Here’s how Helene is different. This time, Pardee’s clinics have no power; the exhausted medical folks who care for us in the ER or at bedside may have no home to go home to, and certainly no easy route to get home.

This time, we can’t sit at home, turn on CNN or Fox or Netflix and tune out the pandemic. The damage is all around us and inescapable. Yes, the lights, Wifi and nightly news will come back on. But it’ll be months before all the roads are repaired, maybe more; and years before homes are rebuilt. It’s going to make the inconveniences of Covid seem like a stubbed toe.

So, fortunately, Gov. Cooper, Leader Berger and Speaker Moore, you’ve got a team on the ground locally in state Reps. Johnson and Balkcom and Sen. Moffitt to help lead the recovery-rebuild effort. We have a feeling that those three legislators will break their legislative challenges and achievements in two categories: pre- and post-Helene.

Ahead of the crucial special session on Helene, we look forward to y’all’s visit.

NOTE: Gov. Cooper was in the region surveying damage on Sunday.