News

Helene will cost $54 billion, governor projects

By NC Tribune, Published: October 25, 2024

Gov. Roy Cooper and his aides believe western North Carolina’s recovery from Hurricane Helene will ultimately consume about $53.6 billion from governmental and private sources.

Of that, about $41.1 billion is the direct cost of the damage and another $7.6 billion is the prospective indirect cost of mitigating its follow-on effects on affected communities, such as the loss of the fall tourist season.

The remaining $4.8 billion is the “strengthening and mitigation” that’s likely needed to beef up the region’s defenses against the next big storm.

Cooper’s staff believes about $6.3 billion of the overall funding — not quite 12% — will come from insurance and other private sources.

They also reckon the federal government will ultimately step up with $13.6 billion in aid — another 25% or thereabouts.

But with the General Assembly having already allocated $273 million to the recovery, that leaves the source of the remaining $33.4 billion an open question.

Cooper is urging legislators to pass a $3.9 billion aid package to get a start on closing the gap — and in any event to see to it that western North Carolina gets resources quickly to better the chances that the region recovers.

The governor issued that recommendation a day before the House and Senate are scheduled to convene for their second hurricane-related session this month.

The first produced the $273 million allocation, and legislative leaders acknowledged that that’s just the down payment on the recovery effort. Western legislators like Sen. Kevin Corbin, R-Macon, have been gathering funding requests to incorporate into a second relief bill.

It’s likely that the governor’s request, strictly defined, is dead on arrival. Legislative leaders routinely ignore his normal annual budget proposals, and on top of that Cooper is a lame duck whose term ends in 10 weeks.

But legislators do listen to what executive branch departments have to say, so some of their thinking is likely to find its way into whatever aid package emerges this week.

In broad strokes, Cooper and his aides say the package should include:

• $650 million to support western North Carolina’s economy.
• $650 million to address housing needs.
• $578 million to help utilities recover.
• $55 million for transportation.
• $422 million for the agriculture sector.
• $594 million for state and local government operations.
• $282 million for schools.
• $252 million for health and human services.

Of this, about $821 million is money the state’s going to need to match federal disaster funds, and some of that is also in the request to address agency cash-flow needs.

Notably, while the education request includes money for K-12 schools and the N.C. Community Colleges, there’s no earmark in it for the UNC System.

And the $55 million for transportation includes no additional money for repairs to state- and city-maintained roads and bridges. Prospective allocations remain to be determined, in part because officials are trying to figure out how much the feds might chip in.

All told, the governor’s staff reckons that repairing and strengthening the west’s transportation network will ultimately take about $9.8 billion.

The transportation proposal does include $46 million to help with the repair and replacement of privately-owned roads and bridges, which serve many neighborhoods and home sites in the region.

One of the drivers of the housing request is the realization that 92.5 percent of the homes with FEMA-verified flood damage lacked flood insurance.

The economic-support request, meanwhile, includes $475 million to revive the COVID-era Business Recovery Grant program, which subsidized businesses that suffered economic losses of 20 precent or more attributable to the pandemic.