Current Status of Helene-Hit Areas?
 

Curious what is going on in the areas hardest hit by Helene and if/when they will recover.

I was talking to my brother in law. He grew up in the mountains of NC, bought a second house there, where he plans to retire, hunt, and fish. His family have homes in the area. In Helene, a slide took out a relative's house, killed the husband, the wife was eventually rescued by helicopter. His two neighbors both have $500K+ damage to their houses which are uninhabitable. His 50 yard driveway suffered a slide that will require a $100K retaining wall to repair. The roads have huge damage all over, repairing just one spot near his house took 40 double semi loads of rock. The town or hamlet nearest his house is basically gone. The nearest real town is partly gone. Most alarming, he told me that so much soil has been washed away that, next time, it won't take 30 inches of rain to trigger similar slides. No-one had insurance for flood or earth movement. He says that the people he knows are all unsure whether to stay. He's unsure himself. He's looking at retirement places in Europe.

Is that representative of what's going on there?

It is still pretty bad. I drove through those areas (went from Knoxville, TN to Greenville, SC) right before Christmas. I-40 is still closed so we exited near Newport, TN and took back roads. Those back roads were a trip through death and destruction. For instance the town on Hot Springs, NC looked like the entire town had been under about 2' of water at one point. Parts of Asheville, NC were still destroyed (River Arts district). At one point we followed the French Broad River for many miles and it was as if the banks of the river (and the land 50-100-200' outside of the banks) was wiped completely clean of vegetation. Just scoured. Everything was gone.

I-26 is open (one lane) near Erwin, TN, though. That is a big help...

I think there’s one last deployment for debris clean up from the Feds.

It's been three months and there's still oodles of places here with boarded windows and tarped roofs. It's not just homes impacted either. I've witnessed more than one profitable business, including a large restaurant, call it quits. I think the current issue is labor. It's in short supply, expensive, and not always skilled. As a result a lot of my neighbors are selling for pennies on the dollar, as-is.

As for me, I'm slowly getting things fixed and being patient.
There will be new things to fix soon enough. A new hurricane season starts June 1st.

My friend has a place close to St. Pete’s/Pass A Grille that we will be renting in April. His condo survived both hurricanes, just damage to the pool/spa area. He went down and helped out in cleaning up the beach area. Some businesses were wiped out and aren’t coming back.Most places that were able have re-opened.

The sad reality is some towns will not recover . Lack of insurance payout makes homeowners sit on somewhat worthless property . Insurance will be very difficult to obtain if at all . Business may not rebuild if the population ends up leaving .

Watch how fast Biden sends fema money to the Pacific Palisades.

Already Done

Restaurants, etc. open in Cedar Key again but only one of the 3 boat ramps is open, both fishing piers are closed (as is pier at shell mound). Still a ton of work to be done, doubt any place that got hit that wasn't back to normal by last month will probably be forever until things are back to where they were in July of this year

Unfortunately the FEMA budget was hit hard from Helene and only 50 % of the budget is left . Congress was asked for more funding but it was denied . Like anything else there is only so much $$$ to go around . I feel bad for the fire victims and anyone else that will be hit by natural disasters this year .

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/fema-spent-nearly-half-its-disaster-budget-in-just-8-days-with-hurricane/

Isn't going to matter, those legacy properties all had low interest loans, the new higher interest rates and insurance costs just gentrified the whole region for the future.
It will never be the same.

I wonder what they spent it on. I don’t know anyone that received a cent/aid in my town.

Illegals ^^

Hurricane Helene is old news.
"Here is $750 fed bucks for your troubles. Don't dare clear your own streets or you'll be arrested by FEMA. All survival flights are grounded. We are the adults."

Meanwhile $100B+ was recently sent overseas.

It_can't_be_more_clear.

A big open question in Asheville is rebuilding on anything that looks like a flood plain. We have a few friends with businesses that got wiped off the map. Literally. Buildings were demolished. They still have land but don't know what they are going to be allowed to do with it.

The brewery culture in Asheville will be severely impaired for a long time. There are few tourists and many service staff left town because their jobs disappeared. Some of the breweries are gone or severely damaged. There is some life, so it isn't all gone but it will take years to rebuild. I don't think most outside of the area have any true comprehension of the devastation.

The less said about local government and FEMA the better...

It's going to be 18 degrees overnight and FEMA booted 3500 families out of area hotels today.

https://www.wbtv.com/2025/01/10/3k-families-be-kicked-out-fema-hotels-carolinas-amid-snow-storm/

Asheville is the wealthy part of that area (Buncombe County) ...and most of the attention has gone there. It is much worse in the surrounding mountains/county. It was devastated. Yancey County/Burnsville area as well. Also, Hot Springs. Some private help (that has been a lifesaver) but little else. People still in tents with snow and weather in the teens.

Sadly, homeowners' insurance generally does not cover flooding or land/mudslides.

watch the money flow for the wealthy people in CA while the desperate folks in NC get crumbs

From your linked article:

When FEMA announced the most recent extension in December, the agency said more than 10,000 families had taken advantage of the program at some point post-Helene. Of those families, FEMA said then that approximately half had found longer-term housing.

FEMA said it would notify families approximately seven days before checkout dates. The 3,500 families who have to leave Saturday were told starting on Jan. 3 that they are no longer eligible for the program for at least one of the following reasons:

An inspection at the applicant’s home that has ruled it now “habitable.”
The applicant declined an inspection at their home.
After multiple attempts, FEMA was unable to contact the applicant about their housing needs.

Other critical requirements for applicants include:

Up-to-date contact information in the FEMA portal.
The applicant did not withdraw their FEMA application.
The applicant continued to comply with the program’s terms and conditions.

If you believe your hotel voucher is being wrongly terminated, you can call the help line at 800-621-3362, or visit a FEMA Disaster Recovery Center to talk to someone in person.