This is a partial transcript of Jefferson Weaver’s Columbus Connection Commentary from Nov. 30. Dissenting opinions and guest suggestions are always welcome. send them to jeffersonweaver@columbuscountynews.com, call 910.914.6056, or drop by our office at 1015 S. Madison St. Whiteville.
There are folks sleeping in the snow in western North Carolina right now. I am not exaggerating. They are literally sleeping in tents and sleeping bags, some with less, in snow, with temperatures barely topping 40 degrees in the daytime.
Why is this? We all know about the thousands of homes lost in Hurricane Helene, but why, in the first quarter of the 21st century, are people not in something other than mylar and plastic shelters?
Hurricane Helene response is the political football that is remaining in double overtime, threatening to go into triple. From Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson’s highly criticized work organizing and moving relief supplies to the absolutely incredible audacity of the office of Resilience and Recovery asking for money to replace that which they had lost, Helene deserves a place in every college course on government studies in America.
Like many of you, I have shifted from trusting the mainstream media reports to alternate news sources. The citizen journalists I spoke of a few weeks ago are the ones really getting the word out from western North Carolina, and not just about the plight of folks who have lost literally everything. They are turning a spotlight on those who were elected or hired to handle situations like this, while the outlets that are sometimes little more than mouthpieces for their cherished bureaucratic sources have moved on to other causes.
Among the biggest and worst players in this football game of tropical fallout is Gov. Roy Cooper. Yes, he was on the phone with Washington when the storm’s impacts in our state became known, but he has never ceased to politicize response to the second deadliest storm in state history. Anyone who questioned the narrative of the federal government was immediately a conspiracy theorist.
Cooper was obviously jockeying for a cabinet position, if not a senate seat, in the new socialist Democrat regime they expected would win in November. He has been the wiggling lapdog of the Biden-Harris administration on everything from gun control to gay rights, so it would have been unreasonable for him to even question the federal position that everything was hunky-dory in Western North Carolina. That senate run is still likely in the next elections, by the way, but that’s neither here nor there.
Cooper’s protégé and errand boy, Attorney General (now governor elect) Josh Stein, was notably absent during the hurricane and hurricane response, turning up here and there for photo ops, and rightfully flipping on the state’s price gouging law switch. Most of the time, though, he was pounding his Republican opponent. Time will, tell if Robinson was a conspiracy theorist about the Stein campaign financing fake black Nazi comments on a pornographic website, or if the permanent nature of the Internet truly exposed some nasty secrets that should have bene caught in the vetting process of the candidate.
Cooper won’t get his cabinet seat this time, but he hasn’t forgotten his loyalty. Having delivered a blue governor and several cabinet seats, he is continuing to hammer the nails that hold together the platform of the national Democrat party. Just this week he again accused the Republicans in the General Assembly of kowtowing to rich families while destroying public schools.
Cooper got in a couple of hard shots in about the Opportunity Scholarship program, which helps parents with kids in low performing schools seek a better education for their children. The program is basically a case of “the money follows the child,” which is just about the most successful school voucher concept in the country. Yes, it takes money out of low performing schools – but if those schools were performing better, the money would be flowing in, not out.
The public education industry that rewards bad teachers and administrators does not deserve to be funded by the taxpayers, regardless of how many union reps, litter boxes for kids who identify as furries, and drag queen story hours they have on campus.
Cooper accused the solons of wasting money on schools that no longer exit out west, when that money would be better used for hurricane relief.
There’s a little problem there: Cooper has already threatened to veto parts of the $1.1 billion package set aside for actual hurricane relief. On top of that is the absolutely ridiculous way hundreds of millions have been wasted by the N.C. Office of Resilience and Recovery, or NCORR, going all the way back to the months after Hurricane Florence in 2018.
The NCORR was established to help deal with recovery from the back-to-back killer storms, Matthew, then Florence, and expanded to cover additional storms since then.
On paper it’s a good theory: establish a state office to deal with the myriad actual brick and mortar problems of getting people back into their homes and businesses. Stimulate the economy by hiring contractors as strike teams to move in, demolish, rebuild or renovate, with some input from the residents and homeowners. Buy the products from local suppliers whenever possible, to help support those businesses as well.
But good theories are a dime a dozen, and the terms efficient, well executed and government do not belong in the same sentence.
Early on in the response, the state and feds were denying reports that volunteers and civilians were being denied opportunities to help. Cooper and FEMA officials denounced misinformation and Stein even hinted at punishments for those who spread the alleged untruths.
But the truth came out.
Now to be fair – sometimes it was a classic combination of failed communications, adrenaline, lack of sleep and personality conflicts, but more and more, it turns out that alleged misinformation was more accurate than what we were getting from the state. Then came last week’s bombshell that FEMA workers were being told to avoid homes with Trump signs in their front yards. The whistleblower in that case was predictably sacrificed, but she noted that the same policies existed in North Carolina as had been practiced in Florida.
Republicans and conservatives were apparently more dangerous than those who supported other political candidates, like the party in power. This is the type of behavior that needs to be eradicated from our government. Hurricanes, as we well know, do not respect race, politics, sexual orientation, cats versus dogs, or Braves versus the Yankees. Just as a rising economic tide raises all boats, a storm surge floods everyone’s homes.
For the director of FEMA to be unable to answer questions before Congress was inexcusable—just as inexcusable as Laura Hogshead of the NCORR saying they don’t have money to finish projects related to hurricanes Matthew and Florence, or even continue operating, but if the state just gives them a few dozen millions more, they’ll do better this time.
I promise I’ll never again eat another egg, said the possum, if you’ll just put me back in charge of the henhouse.
There are hundreds, if not thousands, of North Carolinians sleeping in the snow this weekend, while hundreds of camper trailers are sitting idle, paid for by our tax dollars. They can’t be delivered because – surprise—the homes they are replacing were in a flood plain. People with no wealth outside of the land nurtured for multiple generations are being told that the government will not help, and indeed may penalize them, if they do not give up that land so they can move somewhere else.
To make matters worse, volunteers and donors have created assembly lines to build tiny homes in several communities. But local officials, at the direction of the state and federal governments, have prohibited people from living in those homes, since they might not meet building codes. When questioned about such by one reporter, the local bureaucrat called a deputy over to threaten to arrest the reporter on unspecified charges.
I suppose tents meet building codes, and don’t require a special use permit.
I knew people who slept on the porches of smashed homes after Matthew and Florence. Folks who didn’t have multi-generational connections to our area, but that land was theirs, and they had no intention of giving it up for a partial payment and a worthless government promise.
Do you really think folks with blood and sweat in the ground are going to turn over their land because the government tells them to? Especially based on the government’s track history?
Should tax dollars be used to rebuild homes in areas that may or may not flod again in a hundred years? On paper it doesn’t make sense, as we seem to have a hundred year flood every two or three years.
At the same time, the government is responsible for promoting the general welfare. That doesn’t mean food stamps and paying electric bills. The resources to provide housing for folks out west are there, but for whatever reasons, state, federal and even some local governments would rather have North Carolinians sleeping in the snow.
Our own legislative delegation is leading the fight into the state’s disastrous hurricane response. What is disgusting is that they are having to do so yet again.
Before she was fired, Laura Hogshead of the NCORR said in front of the committee that the agency had learned what it had done wrong and wouldn’t make the same mistakes again. Plus they said it made more sense to trust the fiscal skills of a failed agency with $800,000 worth of accountants who can’t find millions of dollars.
Ms. Hogshead is right on one thing: maybe NCORR has learned what was done wrong. Hopefully, so have the people of North Carolina, and we can keep this from happening again.
No North Carolinian should have to sleep on the ground because of a bureaucrat’s ego or a piece of paper. No one should be prevented from providing meaningful assistance to those in need because some pencil-pushing politician in Raleigh or Washington might not approve.
Why should we in Columbus County be worried about the government’s failures out west? Because we are far more prone to flooding and hurricanes than our friends in the mountains. It’s statistically likely that we will deal with another “hundred year flood” long before the folks in Asheboro and elsewhere beyond I-95.
Plus, we know firsthand how frightening and frustrating it can be to hear the words, “I’m from the government and I’m here to help.”
Our state’s only hope to improve disaster response lies in half of the council of state and a slim majority in the general assembly. Let’s hope and pray nobody freezes to death before the adults figure out how to lead, follow or get the heck out of the way.
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