[fintstone]

Originally Posted by jyl

This is the way it works in the US after a major disaster:
- The government (Fed, state) steps in with emergency and short-term help - food, shelter, clothes, medical, etc
- The government (state) repairs the infrastructure - roads, utilities, bridges, etc
- Rebuilding private structures and replacing private property, is on individuals/businesses. The government (Fed) will loan money for certain rebuilding purposes. But govt doesn’t replace your house or car or clothes or job.
- Figuring out how to pick up the pieces of one’s life, deciding where to stay or go, is on individuals. Entirely.
- Rebuilding the area’s economy - bringing jobs back etc - might be something the (State/local) govt tries to do. Not a Fed role. And it’ll take a decade or longer. People need to forget about what happened.

So, in NC, I’d expect to see the state working on the roads and utilities, and FEMA providing emergency shelter to displaced people for a limited time, and making rebuilding loans to property owners who have decided to rebuild. I wouldn’t really expect much more.

I realize there are a lot of poor people there, who need help. They needed help before Helene too. But the appetite for anti-poverty programs and spending is pretty low, and getting lower.

And that’s what some of you are talking about, the people who were living in vans and trailers in the woods with $40 to their name - they cannot be helped by disaster relief, they are simply impoverished.

The problem in WNC is it took so long for help to arrive. They (government) did not show up for months...and have helped little. They still have not fixed bridges or roads. The interstates were closed for many weeks. They only recently got potable drinking water in the city. Folks could not get back to normal or go to work if they had to. Now it is the dead of winter and people are still in tents and their money ran out long ago. The nearest city (Asheville) is run by the loons (folks that would be more at home politically in CA than NC) and has been for decades...so there is little industry and massive homelessness/drugs. They spend like California (but the people are poor like Haiti)...wasting the money on stupid nonsense (like million-dollar outdoor toilets for the homeless and electric busses that do not work). Taxes are high with nothing to show for it. Local colleges only teach basketweaving. There are no law schools, no engineering schools, no medical schools. The rural areas are totally forgotten (by the state and federal government) as always. Not enough votes to bother with, I guess. No industry, few jobs, high unemployment.

The biggest difference between this and most natural disasters is the fact that insurance does not cover losses from floods (unlike folks near the shore that would have subsidized flood insurance).

On a positive note, it looks like a lot of the recent new residents (carpetbaggers that have really hurt locals) seem to have fled elsewhere since the disaster as I do not recall ever seeing so many homes for rent. Too bad the folks that bought the homes up and jacked up prices are asking higher rent than ever...so they are still out of reach of locals.