David Miller speaks with Scott Elliott, Deputy Director for Engagement with the Governor's Recovery Office for Western North Carolina (GROW NC), about recovery efforts. More information is available at wncrecovery.nc.gov.
Transcript:
David Miller: I'm David Miller for WETS and we have with us today as our guest Scott Elliott, the Deputy Director of a project called GROW NC. It was formed by North Carolina Governor Josh Stein as an effort to help with the recovery of Hurricane Helene in Western North Carolina. Scott, welcome to the show.
Scott Elliot: Thank you, David. Good to talk to you.
David Miller: You are a former Watauga County School Superintendent over in Boone, North Carolina area, so you are well aware of Western North Carolina and its needs following Hurricane Helene. When we talk about GROW NC, what is the overall mission?
Scott Elliot: Yeah, David, you're right. I've lived in the High Country for over a decade, including nine years as school superintendent. I've lived in western North Carolina my entire life, and I've seen the damage and destruction from Hurricane Helene all across our region. Governor Stein, through executive action, created the Governor's Recovery Office for Western North Carolina, GROW NC. It's a shortened acronym for that. The mission of GROW NC is to ensure that the people and the businesses and the communities of Western North Carolina get the support that they need as quickly and as efficiently as possible. The governor has a talented team based in Raleigh working to help to coordinate the work of all of the state and federal agencies. But I'm here with a small team in Western North Carolina, sort of the boots on the ground, the eyes and the ears, connecting local folks and their needs to the support that we have coming from the state and the federal government.
David Miller: It's been six months since Helene hit our area, and a lot of folks are getting antsy. They're saying, well, maybe our area is being overlooked for other parts of the state and such, and, of course, about four billion dollars in taxpayer money has been approved for the rebuilding process. How do we expedite that money?
Scott Elliot: Well, it's a good point. And, uh, you know, we're approaching the six-month anniversary of the destruction of Helene. It's important to remember that 106 lives that were lost, over 74,000 homes damaged or destroyed. Vast numbers of small businesses, the public infrastructure, roads, water systems, loss to farms, crops, forestry that have happened since the hurricane. The governor's office is working with our state and federal partners who are in Western North Carolina. Almost every day, I'm meeting with Senator Budd, who's making visits throughout Western North Carolina. Our state senators and representatives are here every week and meeting with people and making sure that money is getting where it needs to go. But it's true that the work is really just beginning. There's already been a significant amount of money allocated from the legislature. Some of it's being held so that it can be matched with federal funds. The federal government's already allocated a lot of money, and we are encouraging them to get it down through the agencies as quickly as possible so that it can get down to the local government. The governor has requested over a billion dollars for Western North Carolina, and it looks like in this first half of the bill, the legislature will allocate about half of that. North Carolina has also applied for over one and a half billion dollars in HUD recovery money that is going to go to rebuilding our commercial districts, our downtowns. You look at the destruction all over Western North Carolina, including places like Hot Springs and Marshall and Chimney Rock and downtown Asheville, the River Arts District, all the way up into Lansing and Ashe County. There's a lot of work to be done to rebuild a lot of that infrastructure. We have water systems that need to be rebuilt as well. And then, of course, rebuilding people's homes and getting them back into permanent housing is going to be at least an $800 million expense. We fully expect that money to come from HUD. We just need them to speed up the processes and get that money out of the federal government as quickly as possible. But as you said, a significant amount of money has already been allocated. $781 million from the states already been given out to state agencies to do a lot of the work that has already been happening.
David Miller: There's just so many aspects to be taken care of.
Scott Elliot: That's right. The devastation, as we all know, is just overwhelming. It's touched every sector you mentioned. Our public school system, we lost two public schools completely and others received significant damage. We're looking at support for our rebuilding of those schools and also for extended learning, maybe summer learning for those students who were out of school. My own children were out of school for over a month in Watauga County, and that's true across the region. But also, there's a sense of immediacy right now about debris removal. That's one of the top priorities as we're looking at the prevention of wildfires. It's hard to get your head around fifty million cubic yards of debris. 822,000 acres of timberland damage. So wildfire prevention is top of mind. There have been over 123 of those large temporary debris processing sites that people see where the debris has been taken to for processing. Already five million cubic yards of debris have been removed just from roadsides alone. And then, of course, it's just about kind of reopening Western North Carolina. Eighty-four percent of the impacted roads have been reopened, not the least of which is I-40 in North Carolina and Tennessee. Over the next couple of years, it's going to cost about $1 billion to get I-40 back up in four lanes. This whole storm, David, is the worst natural disaster in North Carolina history by a magnitude of three. You know, small businesses have received 989 loans from the Small Business Initiative and another 600 grants are going to be going out in the next few weeks to small businesses for grants to get them reopened and ready for the spring and summer travel and tourism season. And then, of course, our state parks and cultural areas, all but two of those are open fully or partially ready to welcome guests back into the outdoors and our cultural resource. I would encourage all the listeners here in the WETS listening area to go to the website, wncrecovery.nc.gov. You can see updates to the work that's being done, good news, and success stories. Also see some of the challenges and just kind of keep a pulse on this, as you said, David, a real long-term recovery. For right now, the work continues on the critical areas. If you've been out and about, you've seen those large tree removal and debris transport vehicles. So debris removal is, you know, top of mind. Got to get that debris out. Army Corps of Engineers in the rivers taking out the large debris so that we can then get onto working on road and bridge repair. And of course, housing, I mentioned that 74,000 homes, and when those HUD dollars begin to flow, there'll be significant work being done on housing. Workforce housing and long-term housing for our residents of Western North Carolina, and then getting those small businesses and downtowns back up and running.
David Miller: We've been talking with Scott Elliott, the Deputy Director for Engagement for the newly-formed Governor's Recovery Office for Western North Carolina, GROW NC. Scott, thanks so much for being with us.
Scott Elliot: David, thank you, and thanks for sharing all this important information.