Speaker 1: What's going on.
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And again, thank you so much for your support. Now,
just because we did not get a bunch of the
wintry mix aka Satan slushy here in the Charlotte area
doesn't mean that other areas in the state.
Speaker 1: Did not.
Speaker 2: Western North Carolina got hit with a whole bunch of
snow and this made things very difficult for the roughly
what almost two thousand families that were being kicked out
of their hotels by FEMA. But then FEMA was like, okay,
we have heard the public pressure.
Speaker 1: I'm just kidding. They didn't say that part.
Speaker 2: They said, we are not going to kick them out
on Sunday because of the weather.
Speaker 1: Obviously there's a bunch of snow all around.
Speaker 2: The roads are dangerous and so we can't have a
whole bunch of people driving around in U halls. I'm
just kidding. There no where U hauls. The U haul
place got wiped off the map. It did over there
by the Swanan Noah River used to see the big
U hole sign when you're coming in on two forty.
So I know they said, we can't be moving people
around because of the weather. So we're going to extend
the TSA, not the people that grope you at the airports,
the Transitional Sheltering Assistance Program, the TSAP, or as I
call it, the ZAP because the.
Speaker 1: TEA is silent, much like ZAR. You know, it's ZAP.
Speaker 2: So they said we're going to to delay the kickouts
or the kicking out of the families.
Speaker 1: Until tomorrow.
Speaker 2: It is that the humane thing to do, really, that's
doing the people a solid there. Now, got a couple
of different stories on this, and I've seen numerous reports
over the last forty eight hours about this, because the
deadline was the twelfth, so yesterday, but that got that
was a delayed kickout date too, or as they call it,
move out date. This is from WLOS TV. It's really
the only TV station based in Ashville. That's the ABC affiliate.
There are other stations that serve the Ashville market, but
they are based out of Greenville, South Carolina, so WLOS
generally speaking, they are more on the ground in Asheville
in western North Carolina on a lot of this stuff.
So here's how they reported it. FEMA has extended the
move out date for its first round of eligibility review.
They make it sound so antiseptic, don't they The move
out date for its first round of eligibility review. So yeah,
the kickout date. You're getting kicked out of your hotel
from Sunday. They moved it from yesterday until tomorrow. So
they gave you an extra forty eight hours, everybody, and
you should be grateful. According to a release, FEMA activated
the ZAPP program, the Transitional Sheltering Assistance Program, at the
state's request after Hurricane Helene. The program mandates that individuals
and families receiving assistance be quote periodically review for continued
need and eligibility. Right, because when you've lost your home
and you are put up in a hotel with like
the clothes on your back and maybe some of the
belongings that you found strewn down the side of a mountain,
you really want to hang out in that hotel for
as long as possible rather than going back to your home. So,
the release said, the first round of eligibility reviews for
continued housing assistance is now completed, so they have reviewed
all of the people. And these occupants were initially told
that they would have to leave no later than January eleventh,
but then the weather came in and so they were like, Okay, okay,
we know it's snowing, we know it's really cold and icy,
and so instead of January eleventh, we're going to extended
until the twelfth. And then they extended it again until
the fourteenth. So I guess if they extended again, do
we get a doubling of the two days and I
will be up to four days, and then if they
extended again, they'll double it up to eight days.
Speaker 1: Is that how this is going to go?
Speaker 2: Or is it just going to be, you know, jerking
people around with twenty four to forty eight hour extensions
in perpetuity.
Speaker 1: I don't know.
Speaker 2: The release from FEMA said that the extension only applies
to the occupants scheduled to move out due to ineligibility
following the first review. So I'm guessing they're going to
be doing more of these reviews right periodically reviewing to
see if you are still eligible. What are the eligibility criteria? Pete,
great question, I'll tell million in a second. Additionally, the
release said those eligible to continue in the TSA program
will remain as planned until the following eligibility review or
until they choose to leave. Okay, so if you haven't
been kicked out already, you will be kicked out at
some point. Okay, that's the message here. WLOS has the
follow up story through the program. Oh I'm sorry, yeah, sorry,
this was the original story. This was from the first extension.
I've gotten my extensions mixed up. Sorry, this was the
first extend or maybe it was the second.
Speaker 1: No is the first.
Speaker 2: Through the program, FEMA pays directly to participating hotels and
motels to cover the cost of the room plus taxes
and non refundable pet fees to provide short term accommodations.
According to previous reporting by News thirteen WLOS, as of
January sixth, so a week ago so last Monday, there
were more than fifty six hundred households staying in hotels
or motels paid for by FEMA about twenty one hundred
families met the requirements of the program and are allowed
to stay in hotels provided by the agencies. However, it
said about thirty five hundred households, so three thousand, five
hundred households do not meet the eligibility requirements. FEMA officials
said that they began notifying those families. So three thousand,
five hundred families started getting notifications on January third, ten
days ago. They had checked into hotel rooms and they
are no longer eligible for the program due to one
of the following three reasons aka eligibility conditions. Okay, Number one,
an inspection indicated that their home is now habitable, so
FEMA apparently went and took a look and said, your
house is fine, you can live there. Now, get out
of the hotel. So that's the first criteria. The second
is that people declined a FEMA inspection of their house
to ensure it was habitable. And third criteria, FEMA has
been unable to contact the applicant to update their housing
needs despite multiple attempts. So I am curious because I
haven't seen this reported anywhere. What is the percentage breakdown?
In other words, of the three thousand, five hundred households.
How many had their homes inspected and it was determined
that they are now habitable. How many does FEMA say
declined or refuse to allow an inspection of the home?
And number three, how many has FEMA not been able
to get a hold of. Because I could see where
some of that might not actually be the people's fault, right, Like,
you're unable to get a hold of these people, maybe
because your phone number is not being picked up because
it looks like spam. Maybe they don't have cell service.
Maybe they don't even have a cell phone. I mean
a lot of people lost everything that they have, so
they may not even have a phone. But you would
think FEMA would be able to be able to contact
them because they know what hotels they're up in, right,
I suspect they could probably identify the hotel room. Why
not just show up at the hotel, right they get
key cards? You would know you could ask the hotel,
hey are these people in the room? Did they swipe in,
swipe out?
Speaker 1: Whatever?
Speaker 2: You could find out who's on premises. You could just
actually set up in the lobby of the hotel where
I understand and they usually have a chair or two
set up in these lobbies. Nowadays, it's pretty new thing,
and so you could just set up in the lobby
and just catch people on the way in or way
out talk to them there. The decision also comes on
the heels of a protest that was held in downtown
Asheville on January eighth. Protesters there demanded FEMA extend the deadline.
So this is what is happening out in western North Carolina.
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Tommy wants to know how in the world can we
contact these people regarding the FEMA kicking out look. I
don't know who's got the juice to get FEMA to
extend deadlines on this stuff. Maybe they're not aware that
it's like really freaking cold out in western North Carolina
this time of year. That's possible, Like they may not
be aware that like North Carolina has several different sort
of climate areas, you know, mountains and coasts and everything
in between. But Josh Stein's claiming credit. So maybe call
his office, Maybe call the governor's office, because over the
weekend he put out a tweet that said, quote, at
our request, FEMA has extended temporary shelter assistance through Tuesday
in light of the winter storm impacting western North Carolina.
I will continue to use every resource at my disposal
to get folks into safe and d warm shelter. So
sounds like they agreed to do this after he asked
them to. And so I suspect if everybody calls the
governor's office and says, hey, like you need to get
people in western North Carolina more assistance, and you need
to tell FEMA to give them longer stays in the hotels,
then maybe maybe that works.
Speaker 1: I don't know. I don't know now.
Speaker 2: Glenn Beck, the talk show host, he started a charitable
organization called Mercury one years ago, and I am full
disclosure I have donated money to Mercury one over the
years for their various efforts. They have been boots on
the ground in western North Carolina since like day one
or two or something. They've been there the whole time,
and he sent out a message that said, quote, this
is truly obscene. Late last week, while we were having
a two day planning session, the board of Mercury One
found out that eighty and ninety year old men and
women were being shoved out on the street during the
snowstorm because FEMA decided that they had done enough. There
were fourteen hundred people that Mercury to help. We're happy
to say that we believe all returned to the hotel,
where Mercury One paid for their hotel rooms for another
couple of weeks. Meanwhile, anyone in the LA fires are
being promised full recovery. I cannot wait for Donald Trump
to take office, he says. And just by comparison, I
know that people are doing this. And look, these are
two different disasters. And this is in no way to say,
you know, this one is worse than the other, so
therefore we should ignore one over the other. I'm not
saying that at all we should give both of them
our attention. However, if one were to compare them, about
twelve thousand structures were destroyed by the Palisades fire and
the Eton fire in California, about twenty four dead. That's
the death toll is the latest I've seen. I've seen
twenty four dead, twelve thousand structures destroyed. By comparison, there
are more than one hundred dead in North Carolina and
more than one hundred thousand homes damaged or destroyed. So
if we are going to compare them, and we are
going to say, you know, this one needs more help
than the other, Western North Carolina wins that competition. Not
that it's a competition, but if it were a competition,
Western North Carolina should be getting more attention. All right,
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So there was let me do this first. Actually, Andrew
Dunn used to work for Dan Forrest, Lieutenant Governor of
North Carolina ran for governor. He worked in journalism and
he is the purvey of the Longleaf Politics newsletter, and
so you can subscribe to that longleafpol dot com. He
does free content, but he also has a paywalled subscriber
model too, So if you are interested in state politics,
I recommend that you check out his page, long Leaf Politics.
Speaker 1: So this was today, yeah, this morning.
Speaker 2: In his newsletter that he pushed out this morning, he says, everybody,
this is regarding Western North Carolina recovery and relief, and
the headline is will Raleigh finally deliver for Western North Carolina.
And by the way, before I go into this piece,
there is a sentiment that you should always keep in
mind when discussing these types of things with Western North
Carolina or about Western North Carolina, is that there is
a pretty pervasive attitude in Western North Carolina that the
rest of the state doesn't believe they exist. The rest
of the state ignores Western North Carolina. They may, you know,
people may show up as a tourist and you know,
drink too much in the breweries, hang out at the
drum circle, get accosted by some homeless people, and then
go back to their homes. But whenever it comes to
you know, infrastructure improvements or disaster relief investments of you know,
economic development sorts in North Carolina, there is a pervasive
belief in Western North Carolina that the rest of the state,
particularly Raleigh and state lawmakers don't even know they exist.
And I can tell you, as one who worked in
Asheville for eight years, I can tell you it's not
just a perception. Okay, there is a lot of truth
to that, so will Raleigh finally deliver for Western North
Carolina is the headline that Andrew Dunn asks. He says,
everybody right now is saying the right things for now.
New House Speaker Destin Hall, Governor Josh Stein, Senate President
pro Tim phil Berger all used introductory addresses over the
last few days to pledge to work together to rebuild
western North Carolina. None of them want a repeat of
the abysmal response to hurricanes in eastern North Carolina. Again,
I will point out Roy Cooper, governor for eight years,
came into office after Hurricane Matthew had already hit. Pat
McCrory governor at the time of the hurricane. Governor PA
McCrory was already in the middle of recovery efforts when
Cooper beat him took over, and to this day there
are people that have not yet returned to their homes.
Such a colossal screw up was the state response under
Roy Cooper. It then persisted through Hurricane Florence recovery. And
I would submit through COVID and now through Helene, will
Josh Stein be able to break this cycle?
Speaker 1: I don't know.
Speaker 2: I hope so for the people of western North Carolina's sake.
I sure hope so Andrew Dunn continues. Beyond the rhetoric,
both Stein and Hull have taken some concrete steps that
make it seem like state government is finally taking western
North Carolina recovery seriously. Hull set up a legislative committee
to oversee the General Assembly's efforts, including representatives of the area.
It's great to see an oversight body this quickly, and
hopefully it can help us avoid the disaster that is
eastern North Carolina hurricane rect recovery. It wasn't until six
years after Hurricane Matthew and four years after Hurricane Florence
for the legislature to start holding hearings about why recovery
was moving so slow. I would credit in the I
would credit media outlets. Nick Oxner from WBTV down the hall.
He went down there and exposed the problems.
Speaker 1: I think the.
Speaker 2: TV station I think it was ABC eleven or maybe
it was wr L, So there were media outlets. It
took six years, though, for media outlets to key on
the fact that houses were not being replaced. South Carolina
finished replacing all of their homes years before North Carolina did,
and so the question was being asked why the difference
in pace? How is it South Carolina did it and
we can't. Back in October, Dunn says that he called
for the General Assembly to start hearings right away, and
so now he's optimistic that Hall is going to convene
them soon, Speaker Hall. And so this is a good
development in Andrew Dunn's assessment, because it took so long
before to get this kind of legislative oversight. On the
executive branch side, the governor has appointed a guy by
the name of Matt Calabria to oversee the western recovery efforts,
and he says this may not sound like a big deal,
but it actually is. Why Matt Calabria is a former
Wake County commissioner. He left his post as commissioner for
this job. Calabria, according to Dunn, Calabria is an ambitious
political figure and so what does this mean. It means
that his political future is on the line if he
messes this up. Contrasts that with the bureaucrat that Roy
Cooper put in charge of eastern North Carolina recovery, right,
the incentives are different, and so this is a very
good point that Andrew Dunn is raising, I think, and
this is a good move by Governor Josh Stein See.
Speaker 1: I can be.
Speaker 2: Complimentary to Roy two D two, I can see I
can give him praise when it's due. If this is
going to incentivize somebody to actually care about getting results,
then this might be the way to do it. Putting
a person in the role with actual skin in the
game is probably the best accountability that we can get here.
Dunn concludes, of course, new terms always begin with high
hopes of consensus. Even Cooper pledged in his first inaugural
address to eschew or avoid political brinksmanship. And then he spent,
of course, the next eight years pushing our political culture
to the end. I mean to this day he's actually
doing it, like literally today, he's still doing it. Today
he is joining Democrats on a conference call, like the
National Democrat Party is doing some virtual news conference with
him and the what the chair or the executive director
of the North Carolina Democrat Party or is she chair?
Speaker 1: She may be chair chair Sippy.
Speaker 2: Cup as she has referred to sometimes because she's young, y'all,
and she's from rural North Carolina, y'all. Because she says, y'all,
and she cusses up a blue streak, and so that's
how she wins.
Speaker 1: Over all the rural voters that of course voted for
Donald Trump. But anyway, she's going to be on the call.
Speaker 2: And I think Jamie Harrison, who's the DNC guys, he's
the guy that lost really badly down in South Carolina,
so Democrats elevated him to a position where he could
lose more seats nationally.
Speaker 1: And so they're holding a press conference today.
Speaker 2: I think it's at like two o'clock or something where
they're going to you know, rip into that the judge
Jefferson Griffin who's trying to get the recounts in his Supreme.
Speaker 1: Court race in the state.
Speaker 2: Right, So Roy Cooper talked a good Game two when
he came in, but he was just a liar. So
he then proceeded. And I knew that about Roy Cooper.
Now Josh Stein might be cut from a different kind
of cloth here. Josh Stein came up not under Democrat
control of the state. He came up at a time
when Democrats lost control and they had to then figure
out a way to work with Republicans in the legislature
when they weren't like blocking everything that they did. But
if they wanted anything, they needed to try to get
some good relationships built. Politics is so much about relationships.
So is it possible that we have a new kind
of Democrat that emerges from the North Carolina Democrat machine?
Speaker 1: Time will tell?
Speaker 2: All right, if you're listen listening to this show, you
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Speaker 1: So a couple of things here real quick.
Speaker 2: This one was from This is from a press release
from North Carolina House Speaker Destin Hall. In one of
his first acts as the newly elected Speaker of the House,
Speaker Hall today announced this was not actually today, this
was on Friday, the formation of the Select Committee on
Hurricane Helen Recovery.
Speaker 1: It's a bipartisan committee.
Speaker 2: It's going to focus on assessing recovery efforts, identifying gaps
and resources, and ensuring state and federal assistance is delivered
efficiently to those in need. Members of the committee will
work closely with local leaders, emergency management officials, and nonprofit
organizations to support recovery and rebuilding efforts. There are forty
four members of the House that are on this committee.
The co chairs are Representatives John Bell and Dudley Green.
Also vice chairs are Jennifer Balcom, Mike Klampett, Carl Gillespie,
Jake Johnson, Ray Pickett, and Mark Pluss. The Select Committee
on Hurricane Helen Recovery will commence its work immediately, providing
regular updates and recommendations to the General Assembly, with appropriations
bills expected to follow shortly. Then WBTV has this report
from over the weekend. North Carolina got ter Josh Stein
kicked off his term in office by praising the resilience
of the state's residents following Hurricane Helene and pledging to
quote cut through red tape to help people rebuild quicker.
So this is an admission that government impedes building, right,
that government rules impede Dare I say it progress You
would think progressives would be opposed.
Speaker 1: To such a thing.
Speaker 2: But I do find this interesting because Governor Newsom has
done this very thing out in California as well, saying
that they are going to lift temporarily lift a lot
of the rules and restrictions and red tape and such
the other three ares. They're going to lift all of
those to allow for a more speedy recovery, which is
an admission that the government is stifling recovery and building,
that these rules have a suppressive effect. The Democrat Josh
Stein also offered an upbeat message message expressing his willingness
to work with the Republican controlled General Assembly on a
host of issues, from creating jobs and recruiting teachers to
smashing drug rings and combating the devastating effects of fentanyl.
Then there was this, Governor Ron DeSantis is at a
press conference with a bunch of Republican governors.
Speaker 3: Obviously, to deal with emergencies, often you have to work
with the federal government. Sometimes it's your party, sometimes it's not.
What do you think about the idea of President elect
Donald Trump criticizing a governor in the middle of a disaster.
Speaker 4: Well, first of all, I mean when Donald Trump was president,
he responded very strongly to natural disasters. I can tell
you he responded very positively in Florida. But he also
responded favorably when they were Democrat governors. And I think
he understands the importance of these situations.
Speaker 1: You know, I will note.
Speaker 4: I mean, you talk about you know what you're doing.
I remember when we had our hurricanes this past hurricane season,
we had Hurricane Helene, and Florida were locked and loaded
for this. We respond. But then you go to North
Carolina and it was like a third world country. All
of a sudden, there was no sense of urgency from
the federal government. I think the state government didn't do
very well, and so I'm sending my assets up there
to help rescue people.
Speaker 1: Florida State Guard is up.
Speaker 4: There doing that, and I think the administration was asleep
this switch. Then Milton came and they knew that they
had suffered some political negativity of that. So I have
Harris trying to pick a fight with me in the
middle of Hurricane Milton.
Speaker 2: Say, all right, so I'm gonna leave it there, because
then he goes into the Harris fight.
Speaker 1: Oh you know, I try to call him. He won't
call me, he won't talk to me whatever. He's not
t he's not calling me back.
Speaker 2: You know, I texted him, what are you doing tonight?
Speaker 1: Egg planned emoji?
Speaker 2: But no, that's an indictment right there from DeSantis. Right
DeSantis not impressed with Roy Cooper's disaster response. And I
have not been impressed with Roy Cooper as a disaster
responder in chief in North Carolina for his entire tenure
the Holy Years, and maybe if we had I don't know,
a fairer North Carolina Political Press Corp up in Raleigh.
Maybe they would have held his feet to the fire
in a way that they would have had he been
a Republican.
Speaker 1: I don't know. I don't know.
Speaker 2: I remember the stuff they did to McCrory, so I
think it's a fairly safe bet. But I would also
point out here that Josh Stein has the opportunity to
actually do this better, and if he does, I think
that redounds to his benefit politically for a long time.
If he wants to make a run for another office.
All right, that'll do it for this episode.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for listening.
Speaker 2: I could not do the show without your support and
the support of the businesses that advertise on the podcast,
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thank you so much for listening, and don't break anything
while I'm gone.