It is more political online than it is on the ground
The Freas Asheville Bridge Disaster: Resolving the Phenomenology of Loss in Washington, North Carolina, and Tennessee
The stranger who parked his car on the bridge that Freas surveyed the damage to south Asheville was on the other side of the political spectrum.
He says that he hasn’t heard anyone talk about how politically charged his interactions were before tragedy put everyone on common ground.
NPR reporters are hearing echoes of misinformation in western North Carolina and eastern Tennessee. They have found that the federal response is more nuanced than they had expected, especially in areas that have been without internet for a while.
If you have land that is deemed unlivable, FEMA can’t seize it and they say rumors it’s confiscating private donations are false.
Musk has a social media platform that has been used for rumors and conspiracy theories. Sometimes they have been fueled by the billionaire himself.
On Friday Musk fed into a common complaint online that governments are preventing private citizens from offering help to people in need. When engineers from his company attempted to offer help by helicopter, they were told by the Federal Emergency Management Agency that they wouldn’t be allowed to land.
FAA in Jonesboro, Tennessee: No Air Traffic Restriction, No Business, No Organization, no News. No FEMA in Jonesborough, Tennessee
The FAA said in a statement that it regulates the skies and that they are trying to maintain safety. A federal official confirmed to NPR that there have been more than 30 cases where two aircraft almost collided, as air traffic in the region increased 300% after the storm. There are no restrictions to aerial recovery operations.
Perhaps no area in North Carolina has been the subject of more blatant false online rumors than Chimney Rock — including the persistent untrue claim that FEMA abandoned the village so that the Biden administration can mine lithium there.
He admits that FEMA might be moving a little faster than it is, but he says the reason is always a good one.
North Carolinians with no previous experience living through a natural disaster may be understandably wary of FEMA. The agency has received a lot of bad press in the past about how it handled disasters such as Hurricanes Katrina and Sandy.
“People up here aren’t going to put up with the bureaucratic stuff,” says Colt Truesdale, a North Carolinian who organized a donations drive and benefit concert Saturday afternoon in Mill Spring. Like so many people in this part of the country, he’s not waiting for government assistance or leadership, instead taking matters into his own hands to help neighbors.
There are echoes of online politics and a desire to step away from politics, in the rural town of Jonesborough, Tennessee, that was flooded by the Nolichucky River.
“We’ve been in an internet black hole down here, and we’re trying to get out of it,” says the young woman as she picks up items on the floor of her mother-in-law’s flooded house. “We’re just kind of focused on helping each other and just haven’t paid too much attention to it.”
A bar on a mile-and-a-half down the road has been established as a collection and distribution center for donations, and is now a place to get hot meals for those helping locals recover. It’s also where neighbors catch up and share news—not all of it true.
“There is no organization. Tabitha Swinehart has been here for 30 years and she says it is called community. Asked about the federal government’s response to storm damage she says, “Honestly, I don’t know what you’re talking about. There has been no. We haven’t seen any federal response.” The Federal Emergency Management Agency has deployed thousands of federal employees across the region.
Source: Helene recovery is more political online than on the ground
What does the federal government do about Hilbertsville, Montana, when you’re a Green Turtle, you don’t want to go down mountain roads?
A blue four-wheeled utility vehicle is used to deliver hot meals up mountain roads that are no longer accessible by car.
The owner of Green Turtle Garage Bar, Stacey Puzio, is wearing a Trump t-shirt. “Pretty much all of my whole wardrobe is either Trump or Green Turtle,” she laughs. Jonesborough is in Washington County, which voted for Donald Trump in 2020 by a two-to-one margin.
“Well, you got a lot of conservatives over here who are not fond of the government,” Puzio says. While the bar only just got electricity restored, some of the politically charged misinformation about the federal government’s response to Helene has reached her.
“Somebody mentioned that [Vice President] Harris was going to be gracious enough to send $750 to ease the strain of losing your loved one and your pets and your home,” Puzio scoffs, “So I’m sure that’ll make a huge difference for everybody.”
As of Sunday, FEMA says it has provided more than $137 million in assistance to six states in the southeast, including 7,000 federal personnel, nearly 15 million meals, 14 million liters of water, 157 generators and more than half a million tarps.
Donald Trump says the Biden administration doesn’t help people in Republican areas. Relief volunteers like Tyler King want to be nonpartisan now.
“When that stuff becomes the focus, I think we’re worried about the wrong things,” says King. When people are hurting and in need, going down those roads is not relevant.
Hurricane Michael Freas, Trump’s Disaster Relief Fund, and the Status of FEMA: How Do We Spend the Money to Make It Through Hurricane Milton?
There is some non-partisanship that can be found in the efforts of volunteers and community food and supply drives.
In Swannanoa, N.C., wedding photographer Michael Freas drops off a Starlink internet receiver to a park where another grassroots relief effort has sprung up. His contribution earns him a comforting hug from one of the volunteers in charge of the donation table.
Meanwhile, Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson said Sunday he had no plans to bring lawmakers back from recess before the election to address requests for additional disaster relief as Hurricane Milton approaches the Florida coast as a Category 5 storm.
It was not relevant to the current Hurricane Recovery efforts, because that program was separate from the main funding source.
Trump said last week that they stole the money from FEMA to give to their illegal immigrants so they could vote for them.
Billions of dollars in disaster relief funds could be returned to them, according to an August report from the Department of Homeland Security Inspector General.
A version of a continuing resolution proposed in the House last month that included an additional $10 billion for the fund had to be rejected because it focused on cracking down on already- illegal voting.
He said that his administration will keep Congress informed of efforts to assess the full resource requirements associated with Hurricane Helene.
The White House needs to send a funding request before lawmakers can return to Washington to try and pass more aid. President Biden wrote a letter to Congress last week saying FEMA has the resources needed for the immediate emergency response phase.
The DRF is often considered the first line of response while FEMA and other agencies assess the damage and needs related to a specific disaster. The president often sends a formal request to Congress for supplemental appropriations to provide tailored funding and programs for any given response once the information has been gathered.
The fiscal year does not start until October, but a stopgap measure approved by lawmakers late last month replenishes the DRF at the baseline level of $20 billion, but some of that money is used for ongoing recovery efforts from previous disasters.
Last week, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas reportedly said the agency “does not have the funds to make it through” the rest of hurricane season.
Another popular refrain that has gained traction on the right in recent days is the claim that FEMA has no money for hurricane recovery because of money spent on migrants, something that is not true.
The FEMA created a response page to debunk misinformation around how disaster funding works and what the agency has been up to.
More than three thousand North Carolina residents have been helped by urban search and rescue personnel, with assistance from the National Guard and active-duty troops. The state has been awarded $100 million from the federal government to rebuild its roads and bridges ravaged by the storm.
Trump said that people who have had their homes washed away are being offered $750. “And yet we send tens of billions of dollars to foreign countries that most people have never heard of. They are offering $750. They’ve been destroyed. These people have been destroyed.
Amid Harvey’s aftermath, Tesla CEO Elon Musk claimed that governments are preventing private citizens from offering help to people in need. This comes after reports claimed that FEMA abandoned the village of Rockton, North Carolina so that the Biden administration could mine lithium there. The US has provided more than $137 million in relief assistance to six states, including 7,000 federal personnel.