Gov. Josh Stein on Tuesday briefed state elected leaders on his $1 billion plan for western North Carolina’s recovery from Hurricane Helene.
“Our most immediate need in North Carolina is helping the people in western Carolina recover,” the governor said. “The devastation there is tremendous.”
The state has established a program to set up temporary trailers for residents in the region who have lost their homes, the governor told the Council of State, which is comprised of the state’s 10 elected executive office leaders.
An estimated 8,000 private bridges were washed out by the storm, Stein said.
“That’s something we in the Piedmont don’t understand,” the governor said. “Every time there is road up a river valley, to get to the property on the other side of the river, you have to have a bridge. There was bridge after bridge that got washed out.”
Stein highlighted a state grant program to help small businesses recover, particularly tourist-based businesses.
“Most of their revenue, particularly tourist-based businesses, comes in October, December and July,” Stein said. “October was a total loss. December was all but a total loss. What we want is for them to be surviving and open doors for July so that they can make some money, keep earning revenue and pay their employees, stabilize their communities.”
Stein is asking the Legislature to appropriate $1 billion just for immediate needs. Out of that request, $150 million is related to agriculture, Stein said.
“A lot of the farms are in the lowlands, the valleys,” the governor said. “That’s where it all got washed out. We need to help those folks. They are a critical part of the economy. These funds can help us do that.”
A number of school systems in the region lost more than 15 days of instruction time after Helene hit, Stein said.
“We all went through COVID, we know what happens when kids lose out on instructional time,” the governor said. “It’s very difficult to make it up. So we want to have summer programming for students who lost that much school so that they can catch back up to their peers in the state.”
Stein pledged transparency and accountability in spending the state hurricane recovery funds.
He promised to share information with the state auditor “on a regular cadence” on how the funds are spent.
“We want to be accountable to you, we want to be accountable to the public,” the governor said.
