With people still living in tents, FEMA begins exodus from Western North Carolina

The Federal Emergency Management Agency has closed four Western North Carolina disaster recovery centers and is tearing down its employee housing village west of Asheville while nearly 5,200 storm-displaced households are still living in hotels with no other shelter options.

The exodus of FEMA staff from the region comes on the heels of the late November withdrawal of the National Guard and the pullout of U.S. Army XVIII Airborne Corps service members in late October.

Some local residents say they feel abandoned by the federal and state governments. Storm victim advocates say a massive crisis is brewing with more than 5,000 families slated to lose FEMA hotel vouchers as Christmas approaches.

The landscape of the devastated region is dotted with tents that serve as the only shelter for some families who are forced to brave overnight temperatures that recently dipped into the teens. Some residents are unable to live in their damaged homes, and even more had their homes and property completely swept away by flooding and violent mudslides.

'It is horrific what’s going on there.'

The pace of federal housing help is far outstripped by the need. Only 27 FEMA mobile homes and trailers have been delivered to Western North Carolina families whose homes were destroyed in the devastating flood spurred by Hurricane Helene in late September. A FEMA official said victims must file for storm aid by Jan. 7.

A FEMA official told Blaze News that 5,179 households are still using FEMA hotel vouchers and have no long-term housing available. The agency has helped 4,950 households find “suitable longer-term housing” as part of its Transitional Sheltering Assistance program.

“As of Nov. 25, 5,179 households remain checked in to hotels, and we will continue to work with these families to assist them in determining their long-term solution,” a FEMA official said in an email to Blaze News. The program typically provides 60 days in the "immediate aftermath of a disaster," the official said.

“Unfortunately, this program cannot continue indefinitely,” the FEMA official said, “and typically partnering hotels will reduce their availability to the program as business patterns resume.”

FEMA housing village packed up

That news is no comfort to storm victims who watched during Thanksgiving week as FEMA dismantled its employee housing village in Candler, N.C., and closed four disaster recovery centers in Western North Carolina.

Cotton Logistics, a federal contractor based in Katy, Texas, began tearing down the FEMA employee housing village in Candler before Thanksgiving, according to local relief volunteers who visited the site.

Cotton provides turnkey housing solutions for FEMA staff and contractors who respond to disasters around the nation, according to the company’s website. The company supplies housing units, laundry trailers, dining facilities, restrooms, showers, and other support services.

In a Nov. 22 news release, FEMA said it was closing disaster recovery centers in Sparta, Dallas, Sylva, and Old Fort, N.C. Storm survivors can visit any FEMA assistance center or use the agency's website to register for help.

A responder housing village was built in Candler, N.C., to accommodate FEMA staff and free up area hotel rooms for use by storm survivors. The site is now closed down and abandoned.Photo by Steve Baker/Blaze News

The “responder village” site in Candler was one of several built in October with single-unit housing for FEMA employees and federal contractors. The sites were built to allow as much hotel space as possible to be dedicated to storm survivors.

The Candler site offered lodging, showers, medical care, dining, and electrical service, Josh Wert, director of FEMA’s responder support branch, told Blaze News on Oct. 18.

In mid-October, FEMA had more than 1,400 staff in the region. Blaze News reached out to Wert for more details on the closing of the Candler site but did not get a reply by press time.

During Thanksgiving week, local residents who noticed the Candler site was abandoned found pallets of food left behind that were apparently slated to be thrown away. Volunteers loaded the food onto trailers and distributed it to needy Western North Carolina families.

It appears that in some cases, FEMA staff are living out of mobile housing units on the same site as the disaster recovery center where they work. A Bunkhouse trailer is parked near the Asheville disaster recovery center.

Blaze News asked the FEMA News Desk about the closing of the Candler site but did not receive a reply by press time.

Bridging the gap

Volunteers and charitable organizations are stepping up in an attempt to fill the huge void between the urgent housing demand and the small dent made to date through placement of FEMA mobile homes and trailers. Solutions being put in place include donated RVs and tiny houses that allow families to remain on their properties.

Groups such as Operation Shelter and EmergencyRV.org were busy during the long Thanksgiving weekend delivering RVs to bring some of the families in from the bitter cold of their wind-battered tents.

Woody Faircloth, founder of EmergencyRV.org, said as of Dec. 1, his charity has delivered 56 free RVs to Western North Carolina families. That’s more than double the number of units placed in the field by FEMA.

Sampson Hickox of Operation Shelter loads supplies to be used to stock an RV being donated to a Western North Carolina family left homeless by Hurricane Helene, on Nov. 29, 2024.Photo by Erin Derham

There are still more than 700 families registered with EmergencyRV.org in need of shelter, he said.

“It’s really sad,” Faircloth said after spending five days delivering RVs in Western North Carolina over the Thanksgiving holiday, “and it’s going to get worse before it gets better with all these hotel vouchers expiring.

“Nobody, not a single person we’ve talked to, had any kind of flood insurance, and so all their insurance claims are denied,” Faircloth said. “I mean, it is horrific what’s going on there.”

Matt Van Swol, an Asheville resident who helps to coordinate and publicize the local disaster response, said he does not understand why FEMA is downsizing when the region is still badly hurting.

“We are literally driving in an RV from Utah this week for a family of 6,” Van Swol told Blaze News. “Why are they [FEMA] leaving? The work hasn’t even begun.”

Cassie Clark, a North Carolina storm victim advocate with more than 15,000 followers on X, castigated the government for its response to Helene.

“What is happening in Western North Carolina is a disgrace, and it falls on the heads of our federal government, our state government, our local government,” Clark said in a video posted to X. “It’s a disgrace, and I’m not going to pretend otherwise.”

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North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper, a Democrat, in late October said the state was leading an “unprecedented response and recovery effort.” The overall government response in North Carolina pales, however, compared to other storms over the past quarter-century.

The National Guard dispatched more than 51,000 Guardsmen to rescue and relief operations after Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf coast in August 2005. It was the largest domestic Guard deployment in U.S. history, according to the National Guard's online Katrina timeline.

National Guard, U.S. Army, and U.S. Air Force personnel assigned to Hurricane Helene relief in North Carolina totaled more than 6,200 over the course of seven weeks in fall 2024. The last of those service members pulled out the week before Thanksgiving.

The Department of Defense committed more than 16,000 personnel after Hurricane Harvey in 2017. Some 17,000 troops were deployed to Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands after Hurricanes Maria and Irma later that same year. The U.S. military committed 17,000 troops to Haiti after a 2010 earthquake and sent 15,000 to Indonesia after a tsunami in 2005.

'Support from the federal and even state government is very, very thin, and that should not be the case.'

Erin Derham, an Asheville filmmaker, accompanied local contractor Sampson Hickox from Operation Shelter to stock up and deliver a donated RV to a mother with a 1-year-old baby and five other children who had been living in a tent for two months.

The RV was donated by a member of Crestview Baptist Church in Canton, N.C. Operation Shelter stocked it with food, baby supplies, and cleaning products before turning it over to the family.

“It got down below freezing as we dropped off the last camper tonight,” Derham posted on X Nov. 29. “I have never received so many hugs in my life. Families are sleeping warm.”

Derham connects with families in need of shelter, then coordinates with Hickox to deliver donated RVs.

Volunteers from Operation Shelter deliver and set up a donated RV for a family in Western North Carolina on Nov. 29, 2024.Photos by Erin Derham

“He and I deliver the RVs together,” Derham told Blaze News. “He’s a firefighter and builder. Truly the heart of our team. We have an RV going to a young family this Friday. Sampson got his best friend to drive to Utah to pick up the donated RV.”

Operation Shelter is run by Shawn Hendrix, who pledged on social media Dec. 2 to bring gifts on Christmas Eve to children at the Black Mountain Home in Black Mountain, N.C. “We will not let this storm take Christmas from these kids,” Hendrix wrote on X.

Faircloth, who drove a large RV from Colorado to Western North Carolina just before Thanksgiving, said it is difficult to even describe the massive damage done by the unprecedented rains and high-velocity mudslides that devastated the region.

“Just the scope of it is so large,” Faircloth said. “It’s every creek, every river, and anything near it is either totally destroyed or has been completely submerged by water. I mean, it is unbelievable. It is breathtaking, to be honest.”

'We will never forget about you.'

Debris still lodged high in trees gives testimony to the deadly 35- to 40-foot walls of water, mud, and building materials that swept down the mountains during Helene. Faircloth said he saw sheet metal dangling from a tree 40 feet off the ground. “I've never seen anything like this,” he said.

Van Swol said people on social media have accused him of being overly dramatic about damage and debris conditions on the ground, so he took drone video to prove his point.

“I just went out and shot probably a half-hour worth of video of debris swinging from trees,” Van Swol said. “Eighteen-wheelers upside down in the French Broad River.

Debris remains strewn across the landscape and on the banks of the French Broad River near Asheville, N.C.Photo by Matt Van Swol

“The amount of debris strewn along the riverbanks of the French Broad River is eye-watering,” he said. “I’ve seen the same tanker trucks and shipping containers in the water just floating there for weeks.”

Just before the Nov. 5 presidential election, a former assistant secretary of the U.S. Army told Blaze News that the military should have been doing much more in terms of building shelters, stringing temporary power in remote areas, rebuilding washed-out roads, and more.

Casey Wardynski, assistant secretary of the Army for manpower and Reserve affairs under former President Donald J. Trump, said the failing response by the Biden-Harris administration was “pathetic.”

“I know the response one would’ve seen with Trump, and I know the sense of urgency that you would’ve had with Trump,” Wardynski said.

Some 142,000 Guardsmen were activated to fight wildfires in 2022, and 62,000 military troops responded to Hurricane Ivan, Wardynski said. With Hurricane Helene in North Carolina, “support from the federal and even state government is very, very thin, and that should not be the case.”

President Trump visited Swannanoa, N.C., on Oct. 21, pledging to bring a much more robust humanitarian relief effort than that put forth by the Biden-Harris administration.

“We will never forget about you,” Trump pledged. “We’re going to be working with you for a long time to come to get it back together.”

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