I reckon I'll stay anonymous with this report but I'm boots on the ground in WNC, Asheville area to be specific. My family has been in this area since they got off the boat in the 1600 and 1700s. Anyway, a few points.
- WNC is by no means liberal. The Asheville area is liberal but that's mostly because of the huge influx of people from California, New York, and other northern states. WNC (and all of Appalachia really) is very conservative overall, it's old fashioned, it's definitely part of the Bible Belt, and is historically 10-15 years behind everywhere else. Hell we still had Granny Doctors until after WW2.
- President Trump made his very first visit of office to Swannanoa (Swan Ahhh Noah) which was one of the hardest hit areas during Helene and is about 20 minutes east of Asheville. For what it's worth Biden didn't set foot here. He took an aerial tour of the damage.
- The people who were most affected were the poor. They tend to live "down by the river" in trailers and, welp, those trailers are gone now. I've definitely heard of people living in heated tents.
- It's still a mess. The level of dustruction is unreal. Entire towns gone, etc. That's not some that gets fixed quickly. Every day I see work being done but it's slow going and most of it is being done by locals as far as I can tell.
- It's not quite "bodies strewn about the hillside" but I still haven't heard an official death count. There are people who were straight up washed away and never found for sure though.
- The Army Corp of Engineers have done a lot of good work here rebuilding roads, fixing the City of Asheville's water supply, etc.
- FEMA gave every household $750 and you could apply for more. I know several people who got FEMA money for generators, etc.
- In my opinion, the reason people are in tents now is because of the insane cost of real estate here due to all the new outsiders since 2020. This has been a trend and a problem for quite some time (hell, look at the Biltmore Estate, built by a New Yorker) but it has gotten exponentially worse since 2020. So FEMA (ot whatever government agency) buys the floodplain property from the owners who lost everything and these people have no where to go. Even small communities aren't immune to this as Californians come here to escape the wildfires and play farmer.
- IMO, here in the Asheville area, a large part of the problem is liberal miss management of resources. I would imagine that other rural areas have fared better. We are a hardy stock and we take care of each other but here it's all liberals from other places so that sense of community isn't as hardy.
Anywho I hope this helps.
Thanks for all you do,
Bitstrologer