Appalachia: Save the families and the children!

A single family who suffers a house fire loses everything. Hurricane Helene devastated 30 communities and hundreds, if not thousands, of residences in those communities. Families have lost everything-

There are American families living in summer tents in the mud and snow of Western North Carolina, as you read this. So many individual voices have been rising up on social media, including X (formerly Twitter), Instagram, and especially on TikTok, that there is now increasing pressure on FEMA, North Carolina state government, and other municipalities to take further emergency actions.

Samaritan’s Purse has announced that it will build and deliver 1,000 homes to Western North Carolina. James O’Keefe has indicated his company, OMG, is now in Western North Carolina undercover.

FOX News sent a national correspondent to the region who interviews families still living in tents in North Carolina as of November 22^nd when the snow started. Newsmax has been interviewing on the ground witnesses. And Glenn Beck was on the scene very early and has brought attention, as well as his national charity to the region.

Elon Musk has been continuing to support the region by extending free StarLink coverage in the disaster region until January 14, 2025.

Churches and the networks of volunteers who coalesced around the aching needs of the region established distribution centers for food, hygiene supplies, and water that have been donated. But at 60 days post-hurricane, so much more is needed. One volunteer, Shawn Hendrix, has said “the final mile” can be the biggest challenge in the remote mountainous regions. He has personally overseen airdrops by drone of baby supplies to a home still completely cut off, as well as other deliveries to other survivors in similar situations.

FEMA is Pressured to Respond

FEMA is being forced by increasing social media pressure to respond. FEMA officer Jeremy Slinker has said that it’s impossible to put an exact date on when families will be placed in housing and that he is hopeful it will be within months. He stated further that a number of people are wanting to stay in tents…. Deputy Assistant for Housing at FEMA said more than 1000 survivors from North Carolina have declined housing for various reasons.

North Carolina survivors have reported that they have been offered housing in completely different regions where they will be unable to protect their own property and help their neighbors. So, they have refused what they feel is an attempt to move them off their land and displace them out of their communities.

A FEMA spokesperson declared that they have “14 families occupying units in Buncombe, Haywood, Mcdowell, and Henderson counties,” but that there are 500 families approved for direct housing assistance. That is 486 families — already approved and waiting, who have not been provided with assistance.

These are the survivors whose homes, businesses, and whole communities were washed away when Hurricane Helene and related flooding swept the region two months ago.

There were some FEMA vouchers issued early to folks and some shelters set up. But the vouchers have been used and the shelters have closed, turning people out into the cold. Many families are in tents because there is no other infrastructure available to house these people.

The scale and scope of the disaster are almost unimaginable. One person declared that the region affected in North Carolina is the size of Massachusetts. By FEMA’s own count, 134,000 households have been provided some form of assistance to date, and 4,800 families alone in Buncombe County were provided with hotel vouchers.

Imagine your house is swept away, and you’ve lost everything, including your ID and whatever cash you had. Your food, clothing, car or truck, valuable documents, computer, and cell phone are all gone. Your bank is gone. There is no internet available, no phone service, and sometimes no electricity. The mountains of debris from the storm and flood are still being scoured for cadavers — the remains of people they know and love. The death toll being reported is much lower than the actual number of dead.

Many areas have no drinkable water, local businesses are destroyed, and the streets and bridges have been blocked or washed out. Volunteers have come in, removed trees from streets, brought in emergency food and other supplies. Miners from West Virginia showed up and built an access road into the isolated community of Big Chimney in three days after the state government said it would be months before the road was re-established.

Tents were donated, too, to help families in the immediate aftermath of the catastrophe.

Families Sheltering in Tents as the Snow Flies

But state and federal officials and agencies have not stepped in with adequate support and assistance. Longer-term shelters of any sort have not been accomplished to meet the needs of the survivors of this massive disaster.

Families have remained in tents, and volunteers have been collecting and bringing in heaters and wood stoves since winter has arrived. Safety is an issue, too. A mother and daughters had to fend off a bear one night because they had food in their tent.

Now, parents and grandparents are being told their children will be taken by Child Protective Services if the families are not in “approved housing.”

Families without approved housing are being warned by local Child Protective Services that their children will be taken if they are not being provided with adequate housing by their parents. These parents and grandparents, after losing their homes to a once-in-a-century weather disaster, are now at risk of losing their children.

Volunteers are now helping families who are living in tents to locate safe havens for themselves and their children until RVs can be donated so that they don’t lose their children.

Some children have already been removed from their parents. Once in the system, children are lost too often, and families may never be able to get them back. This is not the only instance of massive Child Protective Services overreach in seizing children from their parents, but a full overview is beyond the scope of this report.

Meanwhile, when we checked the internet for child protective services in the State of North Carolina, a special banner announced that the state “is now accepting contributions for hurricane damage.”

If the Rules are Preventing Aid and Rescue, We Have to Change the Rules

Shawn Hendrix, with OperationShelter, has been on the ground and “all over those mountains for five weeks now.” He reported to Newsmax that the disaster was so very large in scope that the regulations in place are becoming barriers to saving people and getting them the assistance they need. “If a disaster is so big that it is outside the rule set, we have to change the rules. We don’t get to point at laws and not help people.” Point at how to help people, he concluded, not at rules preventing aid.

A single-family who suffers a house fire that burns their home and belongings to the ground needs a great deal of short, medium, and long-term assistance to restore their lives. Hurricane Helene devastated 30 communities and hundreds, if not thousands, of residences in those communities.

Now, at almost 10 weeks out, there are new reports of two shelters that have been opened in Asheville North Carolina for Helene victims.

The News and Observer out of Raleigh published “A county by county look at Helene’s devastation on Western NC. The latest Updates.” The article included a report by journalist Travis Long, who has covered more than 20 major storms and spent a week reporting on the damage after Helene wiped out large rural portions of the region.

Survivors have great needs, and the greatest needs of all are to help keep their families together and help all survivors begin to be clothed, fed and housed safely. Dr. Margaret Aranda has been putting together lists of needs and where to donate.

FEMA Reported the Region was Stabilized

At this time local, state, and federal governments have been ineffective. Often they are absent or actively obstructing recovery. The Red Cross, too, has failed. The international charity had several shelters in place but have been closing the shelters and putting families out, even though they do not have other shelter.

FEMA reported that the area was “stabilized” despite hundreds of survivors living in tents and winter bearing down on these mountain regions. Thank you to Fox News who flew a reporter in to film the actual survivors and their tents in Swannanoa, North Carolina during the first snowstorm on November 22^nd. Let us also remember the absence of military resources that could be called in by FEMA at a national level or by Governors at a state level.

The mountainous piles of debris, destroyed houses, and other structures remain in many areas. Private, volunteer Search and Rescue operations continue to look for undiscovered remains with K-9 units. We addressed the bureaucratic lack of respect for the dead and their surviving families and neighbors in our last column, “Appalachia: The bones of the dead are abandoned.”

Survivors have been forced to live in tents, and winter has already arrived.

Fox News interviewed Founder and Director of Operation Helo, Matt McSwain. He has been active organizing helicopters and moving supplies into the region.

McSwain reports that there were some FEMA trailers that were too large to be able to get up the mountain roads, which require 4-wheel drives.

Families Blocked from Returning to Land Due to New Restrictions

A further complication is that government entities are not allowing housing of any sort on property that has been classified as a 500-year flood plain. A massive amount of lowland next to the rivers has been redefined as floodplains. Getting that floodplain restriction lifted at least temporarily could enable hundreds of families to be more safely housed in donated trailers, and other structures more substantial than the tents. A Buncombe County public statement responded to the FOX News report, stating flood plain restrictions would remain in place so there was no further loss of life. These restrictions are yet another form of government theft of land.

American Catastrophe Meets FEMA Budget Issues

In Western North Carolina, there is a sea of mud spread across hundreds of miles. Hardy but exhausted volunteers are laboring day and night to address the needs of the living. As already noted the Red Cross has pulled out and closed shelters, leaving families with nowhere to go except to tents pitched on their property or by the river banks.

To the people of Western North Carolina who have suffered horrendous trauma and lost all their worldly goods as well as family members and neighbors, Hurricane Helene is a catastrophe. To FEMA, Western North Carolina is a budget issue.

Residents who are homeless have spent long hours at FEMA centers or attempting to apply for FEMA aid online. Many claims have been denied. Some local and regional officials have commended FEMA for their efforts. But many other officials have been critical and local boots on the ground volunteers and residents feel alone and abandoned by government.

The feelings of abandonment and betrayal are heightened by Congressional testimony that confirms illegal immigrants are receiving FEMA money when so many American citizens in dire need following a disastrous hurricane are not being helped.

FEMA Funding Front and Center

Part of the FEMA funding issues has been blamed on so many disasters to fund, that the agency runs out of money before the end of their fiscal year, according to reporting by the Charlotte Observer. But couldn’t they ask Congress for additional funding?

FEMA has been assigned increased responsibilities, including a major role during the COVID disaster and orders that were passed in 2019 by Congress to provide food and shelter to incoming illegal immigrants. With the Southern Border thrown open by the Biden Administration, the agency was running out of funds within months of beginning their new fiscal year, October 1^st. of each year. Former FEMA administrator Brock Long said, “How do we get back to the basics with FEMA to make it a disaster relief and initial recovery agency and stop adding more complex problems to its mission.”

One FEMA whistleblower spoke with James O’Keefe, who reported that FEMA has changed the priorities on how funds are awarded and is now focusing on instilling equity in the recovery process. From FEMA’s performance, “equity” means avoiding white, conservative, rural areas. The whistleblower’s public statement to O’Keefe described a mismanaged, misdirected agency failing to respond in an adequate manner to the dreadful circumstances of the Helene victims.

Frustrations with FEMA have been reported over the episodes of selective assistance. A false rumor of “armed militia” in North Carolina was the reported reason for FEMA’s early October departure in Rutherford County, NC, further reflecting prejudices. In Florida, local FEMA workers were instructed to bypass houses with Trump signs. They were supposed to be offering local assistance to residents impacted by hurricanes Helene and Milton just prior to the national elections.

FEMA Missing in Action

Glenn Beck traveled to North Carolina to personally witness and report on the rescue and recovery efforts in early October. Beck said there was “no action from the federal government” on the ground. He confirmed that the small community of Chimney Rock was being bulldozed. FEMA’s mission plan did not include people moving back to Chimney Rock at a later date. Beck concluded the federal government wasn’t doing anything — former special forces and locals were organizing aid and rescue.

Despite official FEMA pleas of lack of funds, the agency has built a very large, very secure facility on the top of a mountain in Candler, North Carolina, for some undisclosed reason and at great cost. The site is heavily guarded and contains a number of reinforced tornado shelters along with the main units. Journalists have been turned away without having questions answered.

FEMA is not the only federal agency that has diverted funds from its designated purpose. Housing and Urban Development (HUD) diverted approved funds for homeless veterans to illegal immigrants.

One volunteer, Shawn Hendricks, says that he and other volunteers (such as the pilots who have brought their own helicopters and supplied their own fuel) are not able to deduct their own costs. They are not tax-deductible charities. Thus, these volunteers will be taxed on donations they have received.

Federal and state officials should arrange for income tax pardons and other allowances that could be granted to these volunteers. They have stepped into the breach where bloated, regulation-bound government was unable to go.

What Can We Do?

At a local level, find churches and other volunteer groups and pitch in with donations for those of us blessed with the ability to contribute money toward RVs or other all-weather crisis housing to get those families out of tents.

Social Media Saves Lives, Including Eleven-Day-Old Infant Mason

Social media has saved many lives and has helped to rally volunteers, donations and cash contributions so essential to meeting the needs of the survivors of Helene. The attention given to the disaster by social media followers has also provided needed pressure on government agencies at all levels to increase their responses.

TikTok and other social media have also helped relay SOS calls for help in the disaster region. One of the most moving rescue stories we’ve encountered was about an eleven-day-old premature infant who needed emergency medical care. The family called out for help through TikTok, and a Former Spec Ops Veterans team took off in a private helicopter to do an emergency airlift. A volunteer medic who was in the region that day also rushed to the rural homestead, where he began stabilizing the infant as the ‘copter executed a field landing. Mother and baby Mason were safely carried to the Asheville hospital.

We have already identified and summarized some of the conflicts of interest within the Federal and state governments, which we reported in our first column: “Appalachia: Murder always happens for a reason.” There will be more coming up. The events that continue to unfold in Appalachia are a microcosm of events happening around the United States and all over the world.

Primary author Ginger Breggin

First published on AmericaOutLoud.news