This week marks two years since Hurricane Helene. North Carolina has made a lot of progress since then, but there’s still more work left to be done. 

Helene brought a historic amount of rainfall to Western North Carolina, causing flash floods and landslides that resulted in roughly $60 billion in damage. 73,000 homes and 1,6000 roads were destroyed or damaged. 108 North Carolinians lost their lives. Countless others had their lives forever changed. 

In the two years since, North Carolina has made remarkable progress toward recovery. State leaders have appropriated billions of dollars in funding to rebuild the region’s infrastructure. 93% of road repairs have been completed, nearly all drinking water systems have been restored, 1,250 homes have been repaired or rebuilt, and nearly 16.5 million cubic yards of debris have been cleared. And state leaders aren’t done yet. This week, Gov. Stein rolled out a 10 year plan outlining the state’s plan to fully revitalize the region’s economy.

But this progress is even more remarkable when you consider that North Carolina has done much of this work without federal support. 

Since Helene hit, the federal government has appropriated only about 18% of the funding that North Carolina needs to rebuild. And only about half of those federal dollars have actually been disbursed– the rest is still tied up in the Trump administration’s red tape.

A big reason for the delay is Michael Whatley, who was tapped by President Trump to lead the federal response to Helene recovery in North Carolina. It could have been an asset, to have a close Trump ally advocating for much-needed disaster aid. But Whatley failed to advocate for North Carolina. In fact, he barely even showed up. 

Mayors of Asheville, Boone, Canton, and Marshall say Whatley never reached out, and records from 11 of 14 hard-hit counties show no contact from him. Whatley was so absent, that North Carolinians actually called for his removal from his oversight role, saying that they “have not seen Whatley doing anything” as funds continued to be delayed. 

“The federal response right now is slow,” said Matt Calabria, director of the state office overseeing Helene recovery. “And it does not afford a great amount of flexibility for states to be able to take federal funds and federal resources and meet the needs that they are seeing.” 

And there are still plenty of needs. Thousands of homes are still in need of repairs, nearly a billion dollars worth of wastewater and sewer projects remain unfinished, and many North Carolinians are still struggling to find stable income after the storm shuttered their businesses. 

“People had their homes washed away into the river,” said one North Carolinian. “We still have people in temporary homes. There are still people who are living in RVs or are using tents as adjacent rooms to their space.”

North Carolina could be waiting longer– Trump actually threatened to not send recovery funding if North Carolinians don’t elect Whatley to the U.S. Senate. This isn’t an empty threat– Trump has been delaying disaster recovery funding to other states that have elected Democrats.  

Gina Heath, a North Carolinian who saw Helene destroy 25 out of the 27 homes on her street, said her community had to move on without federal support. “Eventually, secular and religious nonprofits came and helped people to rebuild. We never got anything significant from FEMA,” said Heath.

Those community organizations really have pulled through in the absence of federal support. One group of friends turned a text chain into a permanent relief organization that serves Yancey and Mitchell counties. 

Another North Carolinian started crowdsourcing home repairs through social media. This eventually grew into the Rebuilding Hollers Foundation, a nonprofit that has repaired hundreds of homes. 

“We stick together as a rural mountain community,” said the founder of the organization. “It’s really pure faith and absolute determination that this storm will not define our community.”

Helene won’t define Western North Carolina. How people showed up for one another in the aftermath– the resilience, generosity, and determination– that’s what will define Western NC. 

North Carolinians have shown up to do the difficult work of rebuilding, day after day, for two years now. It’s long past time for our federal leaders to show up and do the same.