Posted on Thursday, February 13, 2025

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by Andrew Shirley

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When one of the most devastating storms on record ripped through Western North Carolina last year, then-candidate Donald Trump pledged he would not forget the people whose lives and businesses were uprooted if he won back the Oval Office. Less than one month into his second term, he is making good on that promise.

Trump’s first official trip as president, just days after taking office, was to North Carolina, where he visited the disaster zone and promised an “overhaul” of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to better serve displaced residents. FEMA had notably come under withering criticism in the final weeks of the Biden administration, including for threatening to kick displaced families out of temporary housing amid a brutal winter storm with little to no warning.

Now, it appears that Trump’s efforts at reorganizing FEMA and devoting more resources to recovery efforts are bearing fruit. New Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem announced on February 10 that, over the five preceding days, FEMA had “decreased the number of open cases by almost 80 percent.” Noem also noted that Trump has approved “more than $54 million” in disaster aid for the Tar Heel State.

In addition, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) has already removed more than one million cubic yards of debris from the Swannanoa River, a tributary of the French Broad River that saw devastating flooding last September.

While cleanup crews still have a long way to go, North Carolina residents are seeing progress. “Things sat pretty inactive for probably three or four or five weeks,” one property owner told NewsNation. “We didn’t see any Army Corps of Engineers. Not really any work. Then yesterday I got a phone call, ‘hey, we’re out here, we’re going to clean up the river. Can we use your property to access the river?’ It’s just a fantastic gift.”

Trump also signed an executive order cutting red tape to speed up the rebuilding of roads in North Carolina. “We’re going to go through a permitting process that’s called no permitting, just get it done, that’s the way they built them many years ago, I guarantee you that,” the president said.

Restoring roads is particularly important in order to begin rebuilding in some of the more remote and mountainous areas hit by Helene, many of which have only one route in and out.

The order specifically requires “the Secretary of Transportation, the Secretary of Homeland Security, acting through the Administrator of FEMA, and the Administrator of the Small Business Administration” to “immediately take all necessary and appropriate measures, including through direct assistance, loans, and other available means, to expedite roadway clearance or rebuilding, including the section of Interstate 40 in North Carolina that remains closed, and the repair or rebuilding of roads and bridges on private property in areas of North Carolina affected by Hurricane Helene.”

USACE has reported “surging resources” following Trump’s executive order to aid with road and bridge construction. “You can’t be instantaneous, but we surged our own assets and resources here in terms of Corps of Engineers personnel,” Brig. Gen. Daniel Hibner said. “That’s what we’re really doing now, we’re moving on that executive order.”

Trump’s order has also enabled the North Carolina Department of Transportation (NCDOT) to explore alternative options for restoring roadway access for citizens that would not have been possible under the old regulatory process. One of those options came in the form of the Innovative Bridge Company, an enterprise which takes retired railcars, strips them down to their beds, and then repurposes them as bridges. These “boxcar bridges” can be built and available in one-third the time of a conventional bridge.

The Helene response is the first time the company has worked in a disaster area, yet they have proven enormously successful, installing 37 bridges. This critical step permitted supplies and support to move throughout affected counties.

NCDOT assistant division construction engineer Jody Lawrence noted that the bridges “are not meant to be in place for 50 years” and will need to be replaced. Nonetheless, the bridges have enabled residents to return to their homes and travel to get supplies until more permanent bridges can be constructed.

Trump also signed a second executive order creating a “council to assess the Federal Emergency Management Agency,” in which he notes “the need to drastically improve FEMA’s efficacy, priorities, and competence, including evaluating whether FEMA’s bureaucracy in disaster response ultimately harms the agency’s ability to successfully respond.”

That order comes alongside additional efforts to hold FEMA officials accountable for wasting disaster response money. Just this week, Noem announced that DHS had fired four FEMA officials for spending $59 million to house illegal aliens in luxury hotels in New York City.

In just a few weeks, the Trump administration has done more to help the victims of Hurricane Helene – and ensure emergency response agencies are doing their job – than the Biden administration did in four months. Though there is still a long and arduous road to recovery, North Carolinians can be confident that the White House will stand beside them every step of the way.

Andrew Shirley is a veteran speechwriter and AMAC Newsline columnist. His commentary can be found on X at @AA_Shirley.