After floodwaters recede, search-and-rescue crews depart, and volunteers move on, survivors of natural disasters are often left picking up the pieces, many times with little aid or support.
Often, this recovery process spans years, with individuals and families struggling to regain a sense of normalcy.
This has been the reality for thousands in Eastern North Carolina who endured the devastating effects of Hurricanes Matthew and Florence in 2016 and 2018, respectively. Many have spent years without a permanent home, and uncertainty looms for those still waiting on promised assistance.
The state program tasked with rebuilding homes of natural disaster survivors now faces a critical need for additional funding.
And in the meantime, housing aid for many Eastern North Carolina storm survivors will be paused and contractors won’t be allowed to begin work.
If history is any indicator, residents in Western North Carolina affected by the remnants of Hurricane Helene, which brought historic flooding to the region, are likely to face a long and challenging recovery.
Still waiting for a home to be rebuilt
Around 5:18 p.m. on Sept. 13, 2018, as French was making pizza, the power went out. Water from Hurricane Florence, which made landfall at Wrightsville Beach the following morning, had crested at neighbors’ windows. By nightfall, floodwaters breached the doors of their home, pouring in from all sides. It was “everywhere,” French said.
Seeking refuge, French and Williams spent the night in the attic. The following morning, they found a 150-year-old pecan tree had fallen onto the roof, impacting the attic but not harming them. Though the storm had subsided and much of the water had receded, their home — located in New Bern’s Historic District — had suffered extensive water damage, with about a foot of water having entered, and was uninhabitable, French said.
Although the house itself, built in the 1960s, isn’t historic, its location within the district would cause future delays in the rebuilding process, French said. Rebuild NC, a state agency created in 2018 by the GOP-led legislature and overseen by Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper, initially proposed a design that didn’t meet district requirements.
French and Williams initially stayed with neighbors and relatives but soon needed a more permanent solution. In November 2018, they moved into a small house in New Bern.
With limited flood insurance, they had to rely on other aid. With assistance from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, they managed to cover rent and storage costs for their belongings, but that support ended in March 2020, after FEMA stopped providing housing assistance. They also received help from the NC Hope Program but still struggled financially, French said.
Toward the end of 2020, they learned about Rebuild NC from a friend. The state received $236.5 million for Hurricane Matthew and $542.6 million for Hurricane Florence from the Department of Housing and Urban Development. Rebuild NC manages these funds.
HUD approved the state’s spending plan for both hurricanes in 2020, with the Homeowner Recovery Program application period — the program French and Williams applied for — running from June 2020 to April 2023.
For a while, it seemed French and Williams would have a smooth journey with Rebuild NC: They applied for aid in December 2020 to replace Williams’ home and were accepted within a month. However, progress stalled during the inspection phase of the Rebuild NC program, and Williams never saw her home rebuilt.
“It has put my cousin’s and my lives on hold, and sadly, Marianne never got to return to her old life or anything resembling it,” French said.
As her trustee, French continues to push for the construction to be completed.
Rebuild NC’s challenges
Rebuild NC has faced criticism for delays in delivering aid to survivors.
As of Oct. 30, Rebuild NC’s homeowner recovery program has “helped 2,803 families return to rebuilt, resilient housing,” according to Rebuild NC spokesperson Janet Kelly-Scholle. And the agency is finishing 115 homes a month on average, Cooper’s office added.
However, 1,523 families accepted into the homeowner recovery program are still waiting, each at different stages of the eight-step application process.
Steps 1 through 3 (intake, eligibility determination, and duplication-of-benefits review) have no applicants, while:
-
five applicants are in step 4 (inspection and environmental review).
-
46 applicants are in step 5 (award determination).
-
684 applicants are in step 6 (contracting and bidding).
-
788 applicants are in step 7 (construction).
It’s unclear whether these applicants will see their homes rebuilt.
Kelly-Scholle told The News & Observer in early August that the agency “anticipates having all awards in the hands of homeowners by the fall of 2024.”
But asked in mid-October for the status of that funding and whether Rebuild NC was still on track to aid all those still waiting, Kelly-Scholle said all funds “had been obligated,” or “committed to homeowner applicant projects in the process who are not yet back in their homes.”
Asked what would happen to those waiting and whether all would be served, Kelly-Scholle said “due to the continually fluctuating costs associated with construction, NCORR is working to assess the outstanding needs of remaining applicants and communicate them to legislative and federal appropriators.”
Now, Rebuild NC is in need of more funding.
Request for more money
In late October, lawmakers passed a bill providing an additional $604 million for Hurricane Helene relief in the state. This relief package, signed into law by Cooper, included an additional $30 million for Rebuild NC.
In a funding proposal for Western North Carolina aid published prior to the bill’s passage, Cooper recommended an additional $175 million in state appropriations for the homeowner recovery program.
“This funding is needed immediately to avoid stopping work on in-progress homes,” says Cooper’s proposal.
GOP officials rebuked that request.
Senate leader Phil Berger said in a news release that Rebuild NC “informed the legislature this week that due to financial mismanagement, it had blown through its entire budget of $650 million, even as 1,600 victims of Hurricane Florence remain without permanent housing.”
U.S. Sen. Thom Tillis’s office also criticized the Cooper administration, saying that for the last six years, he had been “warning” that Cooper and Rebuild NC “were dropping the ball on distributing disaster relief to victims,” with the “last-second announcement of a staggering $175 million shortfall” confirming concerns “were justified.”
“It is scandalous that the Cooper Administration has failed thousands of North Carolina families, many of whom are still living in hotel rooms and still have no relief from storms that hit our state as long as eight years ago,” said Tillis in the news release.
Rebuild NC told The N&O in an email Monday — through spokesperson Kelly Scholle — that in 2018, the state requested $1.1 billion from Congress in funding for housing through federal Community Development Block Grants (CDBG) in connection with Hurricane Florence but received only $542 million.
“Recognizing that the Congressional appropriation was well short of the need, and that the program weathered the COVID-19 pandemic, rising construction costs, labor shortages, and other challenges, NCORR requested an additional $175 million in state appropriations to complete the program,” Rebuild NC said.
The $30 million recently allocated “will aid in that goal,” the agency said, but without additional funding the state would pause projects that are in steps 4 through 6 of the application process. That includes all 684 projects in Step 6, the contracting and bidding phase. Some of the projects in that phase already have a general contractor, but a “notice to proceed” that authorizes the contractor to begin work will not be issued.
Kelly-Scholle said no projects in the construction phase, step 7, would be paused.
Cooper spokesperson Jordan Monaghan said that “recovering from natural disasters requires a long-term commitment from state, local, and federal leaders” and that “the long-term need for additional funds has been identified since the program’s inception in 2018.”
“North Carolinians need their elected leaders to understand the true cost of storm recovery and see these recoveries through to completion,” he said.
Reports show pace of spending in NC
While all funds have been obligated, not all have been spent.
-
Of the $542.6 million received for Hurricane Florence, $497.3 million has been disbursed. Rebuild NC has until Aug. 17, 2026, to spend these funds “and anticipates closing out this grant ahead of the 2026 deadline,” said Kelly-Scholle.
-
Of the $236.5 million received for Hurricane Matthew, $231.7 million has been disbursed. Rebuild NC has until Aug. 15, 2025, to spend these funds and “anticipates closing out this grant this year,” Kelly-Scholle said.
HUD reports previously labeled North Carolina as a “slow spender,” but the most recent reports from October show it’s “on pace,” with most Florence and Matthew funds having been drawn. It’s unclear if HUD will issue reports related to the new funding shortfall. The N&O has reached out to HUD seeking information.
Case held up
Williams died in October 2022, nearly two years after she and French submitted their initial application to Rebuild NC. During those years, French said, they were passed between multiple caseworkers and were eventually assigned a contractor, Shepherd Response, in November 2023. But the anticipated date for their home’s rebuild kept being extended.
“It became a refrain, ‘give us three more months, give us three more months,’” French said.
With recent news about Rebuild NC needing more money, “it makes you wonder” about the money to complete their house. “Are those funds there?”
French said they were often kept in the dark on the status of their application, with updates only coming after he reached out to high-level officials within Rebuild NC, as well as state politicians and leaders. The last time he heard from Rebuild NC about work on his house was about a year ago. He said he hasn’t heard from his contractor since August 2024, when he spoke at a historic preservation meeting regarding his home’s design.
Shepherd Response owner Kyle Aulet said French’s home is a “challenging” project and that the floor plan — provided by the state — does not meet the historical society’s standards. Shepherd Response has attended four meetings and worked closely with the state engineer but the historical society has not approved the plan, preventing the issuance of a building permit, Aulet said
“We’re still pursuing every avenue to try to push this thing through,” Aulet said.
Asked about future resolutions, Aulet said the timeline depends on decisions on the “government side”, noting that his team is working with the state to explore options, such as rehabilitating the existing structure or creating a completely new, customized floor plan that meets the historical society’s requirements. When asked about the last communication with French, Aulet said, “We’ve probably spent hundreds of hours on this case,” adding that “we’ve gone to four of these meetings with him.”
Asked about French, Kelly-Scholle said in an email Monday that due to privacy protection laws, Rebuild NC could not comment on details on his case. but that “many of the most challenging homeowner cases are still in-process and NCORR is working to find solutions for those cases.”
Living out of boxes
And while French and Williams waited, they struggled financially, often relying on Williams’ Social Security benefits and help from friends and family, French said. While they were stuck in the inspection phase, they were not eligible for temporary relocation assistance from Rebuild NC, which is generally provided after a contractor is assigned.
Financial struggles included trying to meet mortgage payments, despite having entered a loan modification agreement to prevent foreclosure about a month before Florence hit. French — as Williams’ trustee — was then tied to a loan on an uninhabitable home, he said.
After Williams died and he was no longer her full-time caregiver, French, 59, tried to reenter the workforce. “I was even looking at McDonald’s and places like that … but they’re not hiring people over 50,” he said.
Most recently, French was living in an apartment — with rent paid directly by Rebuild NC — while most of his and Williams’ belongings stayed in a storage facility.
However, due to delayed payments to the landlord by Rebuild NC, French said his lease was not renewed, and he had to move in early October.
He’s now in another apartment — paying rent using a stipend program under Rebuild NC — but has no certainty on when or whether his home will be rebuilt. French says he is struggling to get the stipend payments on time, affecting his ability to meet rental obligations.
“I just want to go home. My life is in flux,” said French.
“I’ve been living out of boxes going on six years now. You can’t decide on anything because you don’t really know what’s happening.”
