Late one night last October, at a church in a remote corner of Yancey County, North Carolina, government emergency medical workers participating in the response to Hurricane Helene gathered medications, records, laptops and radios, threw them into backpacks — and abandoned their field clinic.
More than two weeks after the massive storm ravaged the region, roads were badly damaged. Led by an ambulance, side lights illuminating the winding two-lane highway that follows Big Creek, the group made its way across the state line and into Tennessee.
Rumors about armed militia members threatening teams from the Federal Emergency Management Agency had prompted FEMA to pause some operations. The same day in Rutherford County, roughly 70 miles from the field clinic in Yancey County, a 44-year-old man armed with an assault rifle was arrested for threatening to harm FEMA workers. In Tennessee, a sheriff said witnesses reported FEMA workers being harassed by armed people…