$524 million allocated for WNC
After going back and forth between the state Senate and House, the two chambers of the General Assembly came to an agreement on the bill that will provide $524 million in recovery funding for Western North Carolina.
Gov. Josh Stein signed the Disaster Recovery Act of 2025 Part 1 on March 19 – it was his first bill signed into law since taking office.
Sen. Kevin Corbin of Franklin joined other legislators from Western North Carolina for the bill signing. “We were obviously in favor of it,” said Corbin, who co-chairs with Asheville Mayor Esther Manheimer the governor’s advisory committee to aid recovery. “I feel really good about it.”
Included in the bill:
$200 million for farmers who experience crop losses due to Helene.
$120 million for home reconstruction and repair.
$100 million for repairs to more than 8,000 private roads and bridges.
$55 million for local government infrastructure grants to help small businesses.
$20 million for debris cleanup.
$10 million in grants for fire departments for Helene-related expenses or to improve their disaster response capabilities.
$10 million for nonprofits to continue repair and reconstruction projects.
$9 million for a school extension learning recovery program to help students who lost class time following the storm.
The bill also extends the statewide declaration of emergency for Hurricane Helene until June 30.
“This funding is a promising step forward in the long road to recovery for western North Carolina. I want to thank the General Assembly for working together to pass this critical aid package to help our neighbors rebuilding after Helene,” said Stein. “But we are nowhere near done -- I will keep pushing to ensure western North Carolina is not forgotten.”
Tourism recovery
The act also includes $4 million for tourism promotion. While there are still many areas where recovery work is ongoing, in a region of the state that relies heavily on tourism, Corbin said they want people to know the area is open.
“We need your money. If you can get here and stay out of the way of those trying to get work done, we want you to come. Tourism generates billions of dollars in Western North Carolina,” Corbin said. “People think all of WNC is destroyed – we know that’s not true.”
He hopes some of the money will go to Smoky Mountain Host/Visit Smokies, which is based in Franklin and promotes the far western areas of the state.
“That money will directly or indirectly go to help people in our region,” Corbin said.
More to come
Corbin said the Disaster Recovery Act brings the total Helene relief funding to nearly $1.5 billion. “That is the largest amount we’ve ever put toward disaster relief,” he said, noting that it was about four times what the state allocated for relief after Hurricane Florence in 2018.
As the act is titled Part 1 – Corbin said that indicates there will be more to come, probably within the next month. “We don’t want to do it all at one time if we’re not sure where the money is needed, and we don’t want to pay for something that FEMA or federal money will pay for. We don’t want to do anything that keeps them from getting FEMA money.”
The governor’s office said Stein continues to advocate for $19 billion in federal funds to restore infrastructure, support home repair and renovation, and reduce impacts from future natural disasters and for an extension of FEMA’s $100 reimbursement.
Eastern North Carolina recovery
The Disaster Recovery Act also includes $217 million to help people in Eastern North Carolina who are still displaced after Hurricane Florence.
“Those folks have been out of their homes for seven years,” Corbin said, “We gave it to them – it was kind of a trade off with our eastern counterparts. We want to try to make sure ours doesn’t take seven years.”
Corbin said NCORR (N.C. Office of Recovery and Resiliency) did not do a good job in handling the recovery in Eastern North Carolina. Stein created a new Governor’s Recovery Office for Western North Carolina (GROW NC) for the Helene recovery. The office operates under the new Division of Community Revitalization within the Department of Commerce. A dashboard showing recovery efforts is available at wncrecovery.nc.gov.