WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, Senator Thom Tillis testified before the Senate Appropriations Committee on the need for immediate federal disaster relief funding for North Carolinians impacted by the devastation of Hurricane Helene.
Watch Senator Tillis’ remarks HERE.
Tillis on the scope of Helene’s devastation:
“102 lives lost. 151,000 homes destroyed. 500,000 businesses affected in disaster-declared areas, 5,000 miles of roads, including almost five miles of I-40 damaged and impassable for likely a couple of years. 1,300 public bridges and culverts damaged, 163 water and sewer systems damaged, 20,000 farms in disaster-declared counties with $3.4 billion in damages. This is a storm unlike any we’ve ever seen in our nation’s history 250 miles inland, several days of drenching rain….Devastation like you’ve seen in Asheville or Boone or Burnsville or Big Creek or Canton or Clyde.”
Tillis on the plight many Western North Carolina communities still face:
“They don’t need tears. They need action. And we not only need action in the way that we normally respond to storms, we need an action in a very different way….[The] topology of the coastal plains, you pretty much know what you need to get fixed pretty soon, and within two years, you can probably get most of the infrastructure done, people recovering their lives for decades, if ever. But that’s not what we have in North Carolina. We have several river basins that flooded entire towns. Asheville just got drinkable water two days ago. The storm hit 54 days ago, and there are some communities that still don’t have it.”
Tillis on North Carolina’s recovery funding needs:
“I’m going to fight for the people who were affected, not only in North Carolina, but in many states that I have family and friends in….We should be instructed by COVID to recognize this is a long-term recovery unlike anything we’ve ever seen. We've got to act and we've got to look at a paycheck protection program. We've got to take a look at employee tax credit programs. We can either learn from it and start talking about creative ways now, or we can regret it later, when some of my Western cities are going to dry up…. I fully support the OMB request for $100 billion, but that’s only the beginning. We’ve got to react differently to storms. This may be the first, but it won’t be the last like we’ve seen in North Carolina, and we owe it to the American people to be ready to do better.”
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