I have yet to see much Fed aid to WNC to attach strings to.

Whose fault that WNC does not have an ocean/ports/etc.? God's?

Hurricane Helene affected the following states:

Florida: Made landfall in Florida's Big Bend region
Georgia: Experienced catastrophic damage
North Carolina: Experienced severe destruction, with about half of all deaths occurring in the state
South Carolina: Experienced catastrophic damage
Tennessee: Experienced catastrophic damage
Virginia: Experienced catastrophic damage

Hurricane Helene also caused damage in Alabama, Kentucky, Ohio, and West Virginia.

As I understand it, Asheville was largely a tourist, retirement, and college town, and pretty small at 100K pop. Before Helene, the town was growing fast, unemployment low (3-4%), on many “best places” lists - so seems hard to (rationally) claim local govt was running it into the ground.

What’s the future hold? Having the colleges there is very helpful, but the tourism/retirement industry . . . Not sure when that comes back.

As for roads and bridges, considering Helene was all of three months ago, I’d think are still in the cleanup/debris clearance phase. There is a ton of Fed infrastructure funding available but it takes years not weeks or months.

If you have lived there (unless wealthy), it is hard to claim that it has not been run into the ground. Crime in the city is quite high (largely due to homelessness (which the city entertains gleefully) and the city's reimagining police work and defunding the police. There is very little industry/work/middle class. Yes...it is a nice place to pass through as a tourist (it is very pretty), but it is almost impossible to make a decent living. Yes...if you have money (earned elsewhere), it is a good place to move to/retire as you can outbid the poor locals for housing and then they can wait on you in restaurants for minimum wage. It is often ranked as a nice place to visit but not to live.

The colleges are liberal arts...no medicine, engineering, law. Little to help locals improve their lot (maybe teach). The only jobs for liberal arts majors there are service industry (fast food and hotels) with low wages. When any good jobs come to the area, the companies hire (for any their decently paid jobs) from elsewhere. These folks also come in and bid up the prices on housing. It is hard to attract tech/industry when there are no engineering schools. A "tourism/retirement industry" is not one where most folks (adults) can make a living. The only ones that are making bank on fast food and hotels are the folks that own them that live elsewhere. It is why there are so many working poor there now.

Tell someone that cannot get to their home that it is reasonable to have to wait for years to build a path for them.

Asheville is like many other overly gentrified spots-great place to live if you have $$, or to hang out in for a short time ie vacation, but the folks that make that happen can't afford the place. So they live outside of town in some area that may or may not have survived the storm. Most of WNC is like that, in fact much of Appalachia runs that risk-the "cool" towns are gentrifying and driving out the original residents and funky folks that made them "cool" as housing becomes stressed/unfordable.
Its not quite like living in a van in Jackson or Aspen, but that's the idea.

You're describing economic issues broadly faced in similar tertiary cities/large towns and their lower-skill, lower-income residents - all over, not just in NC or even in the US. Hardly unique to Asheville.

As for the person waiting for the road to their home to be rebuilt - that's why they're called "disasters" rather than "inconveniences", I guess?

I get a strong feeling that you have never lived in rural NC or Asheville (as I have).

One would have hoped that things would have improved in the city (and surrounding area) in the last 50 years, but it has not. I have watched with my own two eyes. Things are actually worse. The area is neglected by the Federal and State government. City leaders continue to do stupid things that drive up taxes and then waste them on nonsense. They are only concerned with tourism that lines the pockets of those that buy them. The lack of a middle class or enough industry to have one seems an easy yardstick to measure with. There will never be one without schools or industry.

If the road to Martha's Vineyard was gone...or the one to Beverly Hills...how many years would it take before at least some sort of road was constructed so folks could get to their homes? Surely not the "years" you expect these citizens to wait. A lot of people still lived on dirt roads before this storm...but now there are no roads in some places.

Okay, fine, everything sucks. Can we get back to post-Helene status? I wasn't really asking about the last 50 years in one particular town.

Fint is entitled to his opinions ... but he does not speak for other NC natives or folks who live in Asheville.

My relatives and friends who live there .... thrive :)

But they have been hit hard ... as have a lot of folks.

Asheville is a small thriving city ... pretty unique in the NC mtns ... and just 2 hours away .... I am familiar with it ;).

Rebuilding will take years tho', and they will ... it's what folks do.

Other mtn towns like Boone and the Ski areas, touristy areas, and the still rural, impoverished areas..... are nothing like Asheville ... a different world.

Carry on ...

Asheville will :)

Why minimize the issues that people face there (as has been done more than once here)? There is a big difference between a person that has worked their entire life on a tiny wage to own a tiny home and have it destroyed in a day by flooding (when there is no insurance compensation) and a person with a million-dollar home destroyed elsewhere where insurance will pay them for replacement and likely a place to live while they rebuild?

If you were not interested in the rest of the story, then why refute what I posted (a person that spent many years there, owns multiple properties there, and still lives there part of the year?

KC is entitled to his opinions ... but he does not speak for other NC natives or folks like me who live in Asheville.

Asheville is devastated....and far from thriving. The surrounding area is worse. Lucky folks like me lost thousands. Others lost everything. Yes. Rebuilding will be done by more carpetbaggers who will come in and buy the land/small family farms from those that lost everything and have no money to rebuild.

Asheville will be rebuilt (as the state and county will pour money into repairs for tourism). Little will be done to improve life for locals/natives (or those outside city limits). They will be stuck doing the service jobs for that tourism or moving elsewhere (as they cannot afford to buy in their own hometown). Rural areas will suffer for many years.

Poor fint :(

My objection, and this is a 100% outsider perspective. My dad was from Randleman, does that count?:)

FEMA took forever to show up for aid. When FEMA showed up they actively interfered with the aid efforts that were being managed by locals, i.e. you can’t go up that road/trail it’s too dangerous. Or you can’t rebuild because now your land is a flood plain. FEMA offered a $750 check that many residents say is nearly impossible to claim. A few weeks later FEMA says they are all out of money and basically jumps ship.

Contrast with, CA fires and the government says they will 100% fund relief efforts for 180 days. Double standard much?

You never went there I guess.
The local government ruined what was once a lovely town. Soft on crime policies made it … unpleasant …

Have you been to Boone in the last few years?
The amount of construction there was insane. 321 was a construction site.

But then to be fair so was 25 south from Asheville. Too many Yankees retiring there and bringing their voting habits.

My take ... watching the recovery efforts here ... destined for the mtns.

The local, state, private, and federal responses were ALL overwhelmed ... but they were doing the best they could with limited access and infrastructure damage.

Could it have been better ... of course!

Don't know what you guys expected ... and why ;)?

Same as it ever was in rural NC areas ... west, piedmont, or east.

Or even Pettyville : D

To me at least, the local and state folks were doing their absolute best. At the federal level, the people who call themselves the EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT AGENCY? Huge disappointment. They have one job and they totally botched it.

And from what I watched daily on the local news reports, the Fed was doing what was needed by the state, local, and private efforts... and it was massive... and yet not nearly enough. The nature of disasters ... methinks.

Yeah I’m not there so I’m stuck with fake news from halfway across the country….

Poor KC. I guess your home was spared (obviously).