Legislators and UNC System officials are trying to help students of the system’s three western universities with their bills in the wake of Hurricane Helene. The second-round relief package included a $5.5 million allocation that will cover spring tuition (or its in-state equivalent) for all students at UNC Asheville, the institution hardest-hit by the storm. […]
Legislators on Thursday added another $604.2 million in disaster aid money to the state’s response to Hurricane Helene, to go with the $273 million they allotted to the cause earlier this month. The new package cleared the Senate on a 46-0 vote and the House on a 108-0 vote. At least on the Senate side, […]
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 […]
Andrew Dunn, former comms chief for Dan Forest’s 2020 gubernatorial bid, recently restarted his “Longleaf Politics” Substack and on Monday offered his take on a to-do list for legislators’ future after-action review on Hurricane Helene. These include looks at: The coordination of initial disaster response. The communications playbook officials follow for getting word to the […]
State Transportation Secretary Joey Hopkins says his agency has awarded an $8 million contract to Tennessee-based Wright Brothers Construction to stabilize the hurricane-damaged westbound lanes of Interstate 40 near the Tennessee line. The deal includes incentives to have the work completed by January, Hopkins said He added that the company’s offer had come in below […]
There’s more to say about Monday’s item on First Street Technologies’ pre-Helene report on disaster risks and the banking sector, namely that its view is to all appearances an outlier. Its basic point — that major disasters can stress banks financially via loan defaults or the loss of their customer base — is one academics […]
Western North Carolina’s banks, like those in disaster areas before it, are resilient and should pass Hurricane Helene’s test with flying colors, the president of the N.C. Bankers Association says. “I understand how it could be hard to understand how the circumstances won’t have a detrimental effect on the banks in the area,” said Peter […]
The same week that Hurricane Helene ravaged western North Carolina, Tennessee, South Carolina and Georgia, a Washington-based climate-risk modeler issued a report that warned of disaster-related risks to the financial sector. First Street Technologies says it’s likely small and community are “potential weak points in the broader financial system” because geographically concentrated loan portfolios are […]
House Bill 149, the Helene relief bill, includes a section that’s designed to give people and businesses affected by the hurricane a bit of breathing room on the taxes. One part of that offers a waiver of interest on underpaid state and local taxes of various sorts, including individual income taxes. The other part allows […]
Another point legislators stressed this week as they rolled out the Helene relief bill is that a deep-dive after-action review of the effectiveness of the relief effort in the mountains is a job for the future, not now. “There’s a time and there is a place for us to figure out what went wrong,” said […]
Republicans in the General Assembly are pushing back on a New York Times article that contends their deregulatory instincts may have exacerbated the damage Hurricane Helene inflicted on western North Carolina. The article (republished by WRAL) focused on recent battles about the control and content of the state’s building codes, and about restrictions on development […]
Senators and House members came together on Wednesday to pass a hurricane relief bill that represents a $273 million down payment on the state’s efforts to help Western North Carolina recover from Hurricane Helene. The bulk of the money, $250 million, will become the state match for federal disaster assistance. Part of that is also […]
It’s obvious to anyone who’s looked at a legislator’s social-media feed (or U.S. Rep. Chuck Edwards’ official website) that the legislative branches at both the state and federal levels are a key link in the response effort. Squeaky wheels and grease, as they say. What’s less obvious is that legislators, at least in the General […]
The day was one for mountain-county legislators to share their experiences and observations about the hurricane and its aftermath, and to thank colleagues who’d helped them cope with the situation’s demands. Senate Deputy President Pro Tem Ralph Hise, R-Mitchell, teared up as he talked about the situation in the Spruce Pine area. The most serious […]
Duke Energy is warning that some of its customers in Western North Carolina could be without electricity “for an extended period of time.” The utility says “the vast majority” of those “who can receive power” should get it back by midnight Tuesday. Others should see a restoration of service “within a week,” but there’s a […]
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