Source: Raw Story

May 23, 2025 8:51PM ET

Under President Donald Trump, the Federal Emergency Management Agency has turned down a request from a storm-ravaged state that narrowly voted for him three times.

Western North Carolina saw massive devastation last year from Hurricane Helene, which killed over 100 people and left the city of Asheville, along with a number of small communities in the Appalachian Mountains, struggling to pick up the pieces after flooding in areas that had hardly ever seen floods before. At the time, Trump supporters spread baseless conspiracy theories that the federal government was ignoring communities there, or only giving aid to Democratic areas, and Trump himself vowed to improve emergency management.

According to Rolling Stone, however, Trump's administration is now denying an extension of a commitment to pay the full amount for a vital portion of the recovery process.

"Four months into his administration North Carolina Governor Josh Stein, a Democrat, has become the latest lawmaker from a disaster-ravaged state who has been forced to beg the president to provide much-needed aid," said the report. "On Friday, Stein published a video on social media informing the public that the Trump administration had denied the state's request for FEMA to honor a Biden-era commitment to pay for 100 percent of debris removal costs."

Read more: https://www.rawstory.com/fema-north-carolina/